


Avatar Tuner: Incarnation, Reincarnation

by Roald_Seth



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
Genre: Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, During Canon, Gen, Language, POV First Person, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:34:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22600309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roald_Seth/pseuds/Roald_Seth
Summary: > A retelling of Digital Devil Saga 2 through the voice of a member of the Lokapala.Five years after the sun had turned an ominous black, causing anyone who came in contact with it to turn to stone, the Karma Society has grown in being the dominating power of those who had survived the apocalypse, and those deemed worthy enough live in their City. Brought forth from the unrest of the Society’s unfairness, the Lokapala stands in opposition and resists their rule from underground. But, they have grown tired from constant defeat and dismay. The Lokapala only hung on by the shadows of long gone hopes until their paths crossed with a group of Asura AI, the Embryon, which had thought to be impossible. With the help of their new allies, fortune had finally turned in their favor, and both Lokapala and Embryon strive for their goals.
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**[ 2025 ]**

The rumor that was passed around was the Karma Society sent the kid. Shestov and Tizi found him stumbling around through an alleyway, and decided to render the kid unconscious, bring him back to Roland for scrutiny, and then to Adil to be judged. Another rouge Tuner running around Old Portland was the last thing we needed, considering the numbers of sightings and run-ins with the Society’s Tuners—people with the ability to transform into otherworldly creatures of superhuman power and prowess—were increasing each hour. Hours turn into days, and days into weeks—it built up fast, and so did the missing persons, the deaths, and the nooses around the necks of the rest.

Our only option to gain equal footing against them was to fight fire with fire, utilize tuning technology too, but rumors also said that once someone gets their mark—their Atma, their Avatar—there’s no turning back. Reports of Karma Soldiers who have gone mad from it, lost to an insatiable hunger and the entity in their head, pass by more frequently since the counts started to climb, so none of us dared tempt it. A rouge Tuner let loose in the Center, the last surviving bits of the residential districts and the Lokapala’s final stronghold, was the last thing we needed. Consequently: the verdict was binds and imprisonment.

・・・・・・・・

My right leg started to bounce. It had been a little while since any solid, attention-grabbing stimulus, despite the rouge Tuner being chatty when he wanted to be, especially so for someone who had been moaning and groaning that he was bored and lonely. But, it really wasn’t the type of talk I could easily invest myself in. Most of what he was going on about made no sense to me, so it just made it that much harder to pay attention, if I had to.

The two of us were sitting around on rickety, tatty folding chairs in a cleared out storage section—now turned makeshift prison, since it had the strongest doors and best locks available—because this oddly dressed, blue-haired boy who could not have been older than eighteen was a threat suspect and it was my turn on shift to make sure nothing happened. Theoretically, breaking out couldn’t have been that difficult for him. The boy was a Tuner after all. 

A black, tattoo-like marking was something every Tuner had, and his was clearly visible on his right thigh. Luckily, I hadn’t had too many run-ins with Society Tuners, so I wasn’t one for the best opinion, but I had never come across a design like his brand before. As interesting as it sounds, it wasn’t a good sign, especially for me. Unique designs mean that the Avatar was high tier, a heavy hitter; something that could easily eat me if it wanted to. 

And I was the idiot that decided to place myself in the same room as it because I felt bad for him because he was bored.

“So… you really aren’t from the Karma Society?” I asked in attempts to dismantle some kind of variable stacked against me.

“I told you guys already,” the Tuner said, disheartened, in a moderately heavy Jamacan accent, “How can I be from the Karma Society if I don’t know what a ‘Karma Society’ is?”

Gosh, I sure wished that was me.

“But, I do know what the Karma Temple is,” he said as a side comment, then sighed at the sight of my blank face and continued: “I’m Cielo—”

So, that’s his name. Unfortunately, I’m probably not going to remember that.

“—and I’m from the Embryon Tribe.”

But, the “Embryon Tribe.” That sounded familiar for some reason, although anything could sound familiar. I believed “tribes” were what the Society named the factions or groups of the same allegiance in the Asura Project, but there was the possibility of errs for that information. If Roland hadn’t misplaced any of the Society’s files on the subject, there was an easy way to access the definitive terminology. Roland had been methodical and diligent with rummaging through the reports the past few days, since our informant decided to be more than generous in recent time, but sometimes he couldn’t remember where he had placed simple things. 

Assuming my memory is correct, and this bright eyed, blue haired Tuner is telling the truth: the Karma Society had been up to more than just turning people into demons. As far as we knew, up until now, the Asura Project never passed Stage 1. 

To continue bantering, whether he thought it was with me or himself, the Tuner was rambling on over something about a girl named Sera and the orange paint around the waist of his garment that vaguely resembled a corset—except it opened in the front with a zipper instead of lacing. In honesty, I didn’t catch much of specifically what he was saying, but his lively hand gestures and their queues gave me enough context clues to piece the self-substantial conversation together.

“Well, Shi-i…”

“Cielo.”

“Cielo. Well, Cielo, I’m Holland… from the Lokapala Tribe.”

That didn’t sound right in my head, or out of my mouth, so I asked: “Am I using that term correctly?”

“Hmmmm, I guess so. Those scary-looking guys that found me are your comrades, ja? And that Roland guy is your leader, too, right? …Wait a minute…!”

The boy went silent for a moment before repeating “waitwaitwait” in rapid succession. If his hands weren’t constrained behind his back, I’d imagine he would’ve been waving them back and forth in front of himself.

“Let me get this straight,” he continued after calming down, “your name’s Holland, and that other guy… the one with the… hair on his chin…”

“His name is Roland, yes.”

“That’s gonna make this even more confusing! You guys got the same face, the same clothes, and the same name?! Come on!”

That information was factually incorrect. Sure, Roland and I had striking similarities when not paid attention to—and, yes, our names were a letter or two apart, depending how you were assessing it—but it should’ve been easy enough to tell us apart by our height difference alone.

I was the shortest member of the Lokapala by far. I was also the smallest member of the Lokapala by far. Due to lack of food, most of us had grown thin since living underground, but for me, being small was a constant. It must’ve played out as a poor joke to the rest of the men in assigning me to look after the captive Tuner, but the others could’ve been going for the “friendly, non threatening approach,” which didn’t make much sense, considering Shestov and Tizi had already rough handled the kid. 

Adil wasn’t always well natured or mannered either, even around people he liked. Some of that was due to the fact he wasn’t always eloquent with expressing himself, so it was just generally understood amongst us that he meant well. Although, in my opinion, Roland never really came off as intimidating even when he tried—at least when he was sober. I can’t speak so much for when he was drunk. Theoretically, he could’ve filled the spot, but he was also our leader, so he was needed elsewhere, leaving me with watch duty, because James had the shift before me. It would have been unfair for him to have to double down.

Then, on comparisons, Roland and I wore two different styled coats. I think his coat used to be a double breasted one and the reason it was single sided now was because the buttons just kept falling off with wear and then rearranged. I assume, as an attempt to keep his wool coat functioning, he detached the decorative, aesthetic buttons and sewed them back on where the lost buttonhole ones used to be, and kept repeating that process until enough buttons had been lost. I never questioned it because I used to have a pea coat like that: buttons always falling off. Even though buttons were simple to sew back on, it became a hassle when it happened every other wear. 

On the other hand, the coat I wore was a trench coat: something visually appealing while remaining practical. Wool might be naturally water resistant, but trench coats were designed to keep the wearer dry on the inside.

We both did wear jackboots though; the difference was that mine tied with laces over the bridge of the foot while Roland’s boots adhered to the laws of bootstraps. I don’t think I have ever seen the man use boot hooks or a boot jack before, but that was because I had never been present in a situation where they were required. Perhaps he had set saved in his quarters. Or he just never took his boots off. Or he just coaxed Adil into pulling them off. I’ve heard there’s a way to pull them off with the help of another person if a jack is not available, but I’ve also heard you needed to straddle the other person to get into the correct position to do it. 

Lastly, on comparisons, Roland and I didn’t have the same face. Facial features were determined by the genetic lottery. But, the Tuner probably meant the fact that we both wore glasses, both oval lensed, and had short white hair of a similar style, or rather: Roland had white hair, while mine ranged anywhere from platinum to golden, since it is not naturally that color. Now it was a light white under the lighting though, so I’d give him that much.

“Do yah think you can loosen these up a bit? They kinda tight, ja?” the Tuner said lackadaisically as he started fidgeting around in place. As much as I felt bad if the bonds were uncomfortable, I’d also rather not get attacked or eaten, so I replied with a flat, authoritative negative. 

The kid could have probably just broken free if he tuned. At least it was in my favor he didn’t think of that.

Breaking my thoughts, the handheld receiver attached to the left suspender strap of my Load Carrying Equipment sputtered to life; the voice on the other end crackled out my name. I unhooked it and responded to the incoming transmission.

Roland was on the other end. He ordered to “bring the Tuner Cielo over to the [base’s] lobby” and that he’d “explain everything when [we got there],” along with some other details. I didn’t question it or him, so I ended the transmission with a general acknowledgment, hooked the receiver back in its place, and then immediately unhooked it again and pressed the button to signal Roland back.

“Can I free the Tuner from his bonds?”

There was a slight pause. Some static gargled from the tech, filling in the silence.

“ _Yeah,_ ” Roland radioed back.

“Okay. Thanks,” I replied, then let the signal go, and repeated the process of placing the receiver back.

“I guess I can do more than just loosen them,” I said getting up and walking over to meet the kid to free him from his restraints. As much as I liked to think I had mastered maintaining a solid outward appearance, to be honest, my heart was accelerating fast and I could feel it beat in my chest. My mind instinctually thought of the worst possible outcomes specifically just to work me up. Sudden outrage, trickery peeling back the nonchalant facade, a devil devouring flesh—my flesh—just because it was the nature of their beast. Even though he had not shown any hostility prior, and it was us who were being harsh on him, the sake of self-preservation overrides any logic.

Once he was free, the Tuner, Cielo, stood up and started to stretch by pulling his arms above his head with his hands and bending from side to side; his muscles easily defined by the light as he did. I caught myself kind of staring in wistful jealousy and admiration. I used to be somewhat muscular—never really muscular-muscular though—and tried to keep it that way since the one time of my life I wasn’t, it fed my anxiety and caused much distress. However, that kind of bodily upkeep was nigh impossible now.

“Alright… Cielo. I believe I can take you the rest of your tribe... or at the very least, where we can find them.”

・・・・・・・・

Over the course of the years, there had been plenty of things that have come to my mind—be them criticisms, confessions, somewhere in between, or neither—that I’ve wanted to have told Roland, like how I wanted to tell him to ease up on the alcohol, or how it hurt to see someone you revere in pain, or how he shocked his cactus that one time by replanting it during the wet season. But, nothing I ever said ended up like the things scripted to myself, so it wasn’t really a surprise that I didn’t comment, or say much at all, about Roland’s apparent choice in having become a Tuner.

His mark was hard to notice at first, my eyes and attention drawn towards the orange paint he put on his sleeve instead, but those things were right next to each other, so noticing the brand was more like a lag in loading than having to double-take. The brand didn’t look anything like Cielo’s mark; spare the similarity that they both happened to have shapes where the teeth were through a profile view instead of a forward facing one. There were some fractures running backwards behind the main organic circle-shape where the mouth was, but whatever was extended past Roland’s wrist wasn’t visible because of his sleeve.

Adil did not look happy about it, but the rest of his body language wasn’t out of the ordinary. I couldn’t blame him though. Ever since the Society finished the virus, they’ve been giving us hell: overpowering us, killing and eating our people, and those who didn’t get graced with that fate were captured and contained in a facility in the City. We might have already been in hell before, but the virus opened a whole new path into the inferno. For Roland to become a tuner: he stabbed the Lokapala in the back, he stabbed everyone in Old Portland in the back—he stabbed himself in the back.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Greg would have thought. I could barely process what I thought about it myself, so I did what I always would have done: quietly wait for Roland to explain the situation and listen as best as I could.

Across the lobby in front of the elevator to the lower levels, Roland and Adil stood sternly in opposition to myself and Cielo, who relaxed with his hands behind his head and all of his weight on one foot. Neither of them showed signs of moving, so the briefing was made in the building’s lobby instead of the war room. Adil decided to be the opener.

“We’ve spoken to the rest of the tuner’s company. They’re heading to the City in search of the Cyber Shaman.”

It sounded like it was addressed to me specifically rather than to both of us. 

I guess Adil had jumped the gun because Roland gave Adil an easy glance and crossed his right forearm over in front of Adil’s body. After Roland returned to a neutral resting pose, he shifted his attention over to Cielo’s and my general direction.

“Cielo, are you aware of who you are and where you are?”

That question caused Cielo’s stature to stiffen and stand sternly with his arms crossed over his chest.

“What kind of question is that? For the last time, I’m Cielo of the Embryon Tribe. You’d think you guys would get it through your heads. I was told this would be Nirvana, but this place doesn’t seem like the Nirvana I was told about. It’s way too dark and grimy here.”

Roland’s glare strengthened.

“I’m going to give it to you straight for now. The rest can be explained on the way. Cielo, whatever life you had is gone. Where you are from—the Junkyard—was a computer simulation, and you and your teammates are AI created by the Karma Society to be weapons of war. We don’t know how you got here. The information we have says it should be impossible.

“The rest of your tribe is currently on their way to look for the Cyber Shaman.”—Roland shifted his weight around to suggest he was addressing his speech to me—“We’ve come to a compromise with the Embryon… and decided to cooperate with them.”

That explained the orange paint. From what Cielo had said, tribal markings were very important to persons of the Junkyard. They were a visual declaration of allegiance. Not having a mark was extremely rare, almost blasphemous, if the AI weren’t Newbies fresh out of the character creator, because it damned them to the cycle of war they were promised to be able to escape if they were strong enough. Only a single tribe could reach their Promised Land—“Nirvana”—according to what Cielo said. The “Temple” declared it so. Therefore, if the AI bore no allegiance to a tribe, then there was no hope of ever reaching Nirvana. But, then the AI would in turn rule over itself instead of being fodder to a leader. Not being marked seemed like a forfeit to gain a hollow freedom.

“While we make our way to reconvene with them,” Roland continued, “some of the guys will be waiting at the Cable for if things go south.”

Perhaps he always had been speaking sternly during this conversation, but this sure was the first time my brain decided to register it.

“Alright,” I said, “is there anything you need me to do in the meantime?”

“Yeah, you’re coming with us.”

‘ _… Excuse me? ..._ ’

I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything actually. Nor gave any sign I was taken off guard in general. I just kept listening to the rest of what Roland had to say with whatever expression I always wore.

“Safety precaution. I need someone to watch Adil’s back… and extra eyes to watch Fred, too.”

At least Roland eased up his speech with the last bit, but I doubted I’d do any back watching. If anything, Adil was going to be the one watching my back. Despite the fact he could get a little trigger happy when threatened, Adil was our master marksman—our best shot—and my accuracy broke light bulbs and hit gym teachers on accident when I was younger. Roland and I were certainly the worst test of patience for him when practicing at the makeshift shooting range—for the little practice that we got— so I did question Roland’s choice. But, being mandatory adult supervision for Fred made more sense, since he and I got along relatively well. He liked me enough to confide in me at least.

“Where is Fred?” I asked.

Roland gestured with his head to the door of the war room.

“Since he was the one that coaxed me into it, he wanted to show his support for the Embryon too. I’m sure he’ll be done soon.”

If colored paint was how the people of the Junkyard showed allegiance, then it probably was a good idea to brandish my own orange, because at the very least, I can show Cielo I’m not against him. It was the least I could do after what the rest of the Lokapala had done: injustices fueled by prejudices, born by terror, fear, anger, and hate. None of us were exempt.

And since Roland was our leader, and he was wearing orange, it would be accepted—a gesture in the right direction.

I gave Cielo a brief mention of my intentions before walking into the war room where I found Fred sitting in the middle of the floor, contorting in different ways to make sure he was getting every bit of the bottom of his left pant leg. It wasn’t the most effective way of going about it considering his pants were convertible and zipped off around the knee. He gave himself a moment to stop to experience that natural reaction humans do when hearing abrupt noises, until he recognized that it wasn’t anything to be alarmed about, then gave me—and Cielo, since he decided to follow me—a brief, yet hearty, acknowledgement.

Cielo probably didn’t feel comfortable being left alone around one of his wardens, so I tried to be as relaxed as possible when introducing him to Fred. Apparently, it turned out that Fred already knew a little bit about Cielo and had met with his fellow tribe-mates—or “comrades” Cielo had called them when addressing them in his own words, I think. After that, the two of them talked excessively while Fred got back to his painting; Cielo helped him along too.

There didn’t seem to be much of a rhyme or reason to where each mark was placed, but since the ritual held great importance to the AI, I figured where I decided to mark myself had to have a little bit of weight behind it opposed to just slapping it on anywhere. The problem with that rational was that I really didn’t have any significant parts of my physical self that meant something to me. But, in reality, neither did many others.

Besides Cielo’s paint around his waist, there weren’t many options or examples that I’ve seen prior, so in that aspect, I didn’t have much to go off of in reference for mine. Adil didn’t bother with giving himself a strike of orange anywhere. Since Greg was gone, he dedicated himself to Roland alone. He had always been devoted to the Lokapala and its cause, so I wasn’t surprised he wasn’t willing to put his loyalty elsewhere easily. Roland took the paint to his left coat sleeve, looking almost as if he just decided to plunge his fist and forearm straight into the paint can, but in truth his orange mark looked more messy, yet precise, than what that way would have done to the silhouette.

While deciding where to place my own orange marker, I overheard Cielo suggest to Fred to put some paint on his hat, which Fred instantly accepted because they both seemed to have been fond of a guy named Gale, for whatever it was worth. They both mused about how he had some orange on his hood, or hat, or something, and how it would make Fred look a little bit like the man.

Then, like a light switched on in a dark room, I knew exactly where to put my tribal paint.

When I rejoined Roland and Adil in the lobby: Adil, noticing what I had done, started to laugh to himself and tried to poorly disguise it as a scoff halfway through with a bit of coughing and throat clearing at the end. But, it wasn’t like he brought Roland’s attention to it, which I was grateful for.

“Yeah, I thought it would be funny too,” I said in comment to it, even though it was questionable if the laugh was in good-heartedness, “Cielo said he was going to have a hard time differentiating Roland and I apart, so I decided to make matters worse”—I passed Adil a sly smirk.

Conveniently after then, Fred announced that he and Cielo were all set and ready, so Adil escorted them down to the Underwater Cable’s entrance via the elevator. Roland and I could’ve probably fit onto the lift for the ride down, but he stopped me for some reason and said we’d be taking the lift after them. Roland waited a few seconds to pass by, probably to make sure the lift had gone some ways downward, before speaking.

“I’m not a hero, Holland. I’m nobody’s role model.”

I didn’t bother to look at him, but by that I meant that I was afraid to. He was probably looking at me though; it just felt like his eyes were watching me, waiting for a reaction, although all of that was more likely because of anxiety. Instead I was just watching the wall past where the elevator should be, because that was what happened to be in my line of sight while I stood square to it.

“I know,” I replied, “You’re just human.”

Well, that wasn’t entirely correct as of twenty or so minutes ago—or however long it has been—but the sentiment was there. Roland was smart. I think he knew what I meant. 

I hope he knew what I meant.

“Most heroes are ‘just human,’ though, right?”

I hope he wasn’t offended or hurt by it, either, especially because of his new reality. Roland put up a good front most of the time, but if personal experience taught me anything, people can be good, skillful even, at hiding distress and pain. Just because it isn’t shown, doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt—and hurt a lot. The slightest of nuances could be like taking a knife to the chest and the blade gets pulled out so all you’re left to do is bleed out. Left like you’re wanting to bleed out, seeping into the cement and earth, wishing it’ll all eventually drain out; left like you’re dying, and disappointed about it because you rather be dying. That’s just how it was sometimes.

But, that brand on his left hand and the paint on his left sleeve was a testament of will. The same could be said for my own orange mark.

The groaning of the machinery echoing in the elevator shaft grew louder and louder as the lift returned back to its place at the lobby level, and after it stopped to a full rest, I unhinged the lock of the scissor gates with my right hand. 

What was once a grey sleeve was now painted over in orange, muted because there was only time to put one coating on. Full and warm under the artificial yellow lighting of the lobby, it looked alive against the stark urban-scape of underground Portland, lending its life to the metal gate as a reflection. Remnants of my own reflection started back at me from the metal when I let it, and from within it seemed like something was happening; something was changing.

I pulled the gate across the elevator doorway, stepped inside the lift, and for a moment, stared back at Roland like looking upon a mirror, a manufactured mirror of my own manipulation. In reality though, he was the one looking in and I was the echo on the other side of the looking-glass. Once he boarded the elevator, he closed the gate, his marked hand and sleeve crossed over my field of vision as he did so. Then, we descended.

For better or for worse, whatever it was that was changing, it started now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve decided to make Shestov Russian in this iteration by translating his name (シェストフ) as “Shestov” instead of “Szestow,” because I think it’s closer to the original intention. I just have a personal habit of making it the Polish spelling (Szestow) for no particular reason. Hopefully, I can remember that I am doing such to keep it consistent.
> 
> For those wondering: I am trying to keep names as canon as possible, even if that requires pulling from other sources (Quantum Devil Saga), so the generic “Member[s] of the Lokapala” will have a bit of personalization added. What I am not keeping in mind for character creation is there personalities. It would just be too much of a headache.
> 
> There are also some quirks and ticks included in this style of writing that is not evident in my normal style, but that’s on purpose to reiterate more of who I am, as opposed to who I am as a writer, unto the reader. I am trying to keep this as an accurate portrayal of myself as well as the characters I am interacting with. But, that’s not to say there were not and are not going to be inaccuracies, because they are to keep the story moving.
> 
> Additionally: a visual reference for the self-insert can be found at [idamdra-art.tumblr](https://idamdra-art.tumblr.com/post/189617476414/drew-myself-as-a-member-of-the-lokapala-and-as-an).


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roland, Adil, Holland, Cielo, and Fred make their way to reconvene with the Embryon and return Cielo to his comrades. Their travel path had been thought to have been only occupied by the Lokapala, however they find out that such is no longer the case and there is danger lurking in the shadows of the Underwater Cable. But, ghoulish monsters do not appear to be their only roadblocks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The initial plan was to post updates 3 months apart, but due to the current circumstances, I thought the few of you who read my work would enjoy the update. Thank you for your support.

Decades ago, before the turn of the millennia, for reasons unknown, a massive, covert renovation and construction of complex underground infrastructures and sewer systems to many major cities started actively occurring around the United States. Baltimore, Chicago, Washington DC, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland—the most impressive interconnected system spanning from New York City, through New Haven and Hartford, and into Boston—were all a part of this sub-groundwork. There isn’t much more information accessible because none of this information ever went public and the rest was kept tightly under wraps. Security and silence of the project was assured by money of the wealthy and powerful. I only happened to figure this out by connecting pieces of information given in the Society’s records past on to us, the Lokapala, by our informant.

Sometime after that construction, the Karma Society, and various branches of it, started surging around the country in the same locations. Portland, Oregon was, for whatever reason, chosen as the Society’s headquarters, and was built on the island in South Portland. Two bridges connecting to Route 43 were built to access the island by vehicle; the lesser-known addition was a sizeable cable under the Willamette River connecting the Society’s headquarters to Portland’s previously unused and unknown underground residential district. That cable was our access into the Karma City, and was our way to reconvene with the Embryon.

It was a dark and damp place—said as if the rest of the underground wasn’t also dark, damp, and cold—and everything was made from concrete or metal. I’ve only ever been down here once or twice, but those times were more to just hand tools off to someone or meet someone else on a return trip rather than actually traversing the path. Like for Fred and Cielo, all of it was pretty new to me.

Roland led at the front and Adil held the rear, so the three of us who didn’t quite know much about the place hung around the middle for good measure. I did not know how Cielo was able to pay no attention to the cold considering he was the one showing a lot of skin, but maybe it was a matter of youth because Fred wore a short sleeve crop top and he thought nothing of the temperature either. Or maybe I was just permanently cold and it wasn’t actually cold down here, because that was a very likely option.

Cold or not, a chill crawled over everyone’s skin, and it wasn’t due to the temperature. About halfway through the cable there was blood smeared all over the walls, and pools of it turned the entire floor mixtures of red and black. Every so often there were holes that shattered the ground and gashes made into the walls from no recognizable weapon. The farther we walked in, the worst the gore got.

Grabbing at his shotgun, Roland stopped and Adil quickly followed suit with his handgun because at about fifty yards in front a motionless body, clad in Karma armor, the whites thoroughly soaked through in red from the chest down to the abdomen and groin, laid forgotten—discarded—in a pool of blood at an intersection in the hallway. Neither Roland nor Adil, who had shifted his way towards the front of the arrangement, made any attempt to warn or shield Fred from the sight. Although tragedy and its wounds were common, something this gruesome and grotesque wasn’t normally a part of it, so I didn’t think it wise or caring for Fred to see, and yet I also didn’t do anything to prevent it. Cielo, however, was with Fred, both hanging slightly farther back than the rest of the entourage, so perhaps our bodies obstructed the view.

Adil signaled an “all clear” after inspecting the connecting hallways, and so we had the unfortunate pleasure of being able to inspect the corpse closer. The far side of the face had been mauled by something of extraordinary size and the other arm had been torn off completely. Flies and other small insects were already feasting on the exposed flesh and insides.

Thanks to the coolness of the underground—or perhaps it was because of my hyposensitivity—there wasn’t much of a stench until being within a few feet’s worth of space. Although, even with that consideration, it still smelled like a grease trap filled with rotting food, or at least, that was the closest and vilest comparison I knew of. Fred could be heard complaining in the background, having verbalized his recoil from it, and even Roland buckled a bit, his face gone green, from the smell. But, with whatever blood was left in any of our complexions, it started to drain even faster when something sounded from down one of the intersecting hallways.

It sounded like nails scattering over the concrete floor.

Instinctually, Adil shifted over to the other size of the break and flattened himself against the wall. Then, Roland mirrored his position. I ended up wedging myself between Roland and Fred, and then pushed Fred farther back to get him out of what was most likely harm’s way.

“I thought you guys said these tunnels were abandoned and the Society didn’t know about them,” I said with a flat face and just enough gall to make my attitude known. I figured Tuners that went mad under the Society were either killed or released into the wilds, so finding one spare body torn through in old, somewhat accessible places didn’t seem out of the possibility, but if the journey kept going on in similar fashion, that wouldn’t turn out to be the case.

“Well, I guess that’s no longer true. Time to figure out how this tuning thing works,” Roland said after he finished mouthing and signaling some sort of plan to Adil, “There only seems to be one Tuner. Cielo, since you are the most experienced with this, do you mind leading off?”

Cielo, unfazed by it all, looked to Fred and I for positive confirmation. We both complied.

“Sure thing,” Cielo said and moved down the hallway.

“Holland, hold my spot. Keep an eye on both ends. Adil will cover your backside. Fred, go find somewhere safe to hide.”

Then, Roland followed Cielo.

Around the corner, farther down the corridor, there was a creature with an armor hide and scorpion appendages crawling around on its eight, insect-like legs. As it crept farther away from the dark depths into artificial lighting, a fleshy, dark yellow-green mass of some kind could be seen around its underbelly, and its bronze and copper colored exoskeleton was paraded around as if it was any indication of being poisonous; the monster’s mouth crackling unearthly hisses and snarls as it did. The hair on the back of my neck and arms rose at the sight, but something about it wasn’t necessarily because the monstrosity was something straight out of a nightmare.

Rather, it was from static, a charge in the air.

Starting from the brand on the back of Roland’s hand, colored fractures, glowing in unison with the mark itself, surged beneath the skin in a fashion that looked like the aesthetic of any cliché sci-fi feature trying to express information traveling through the internet. They were just long straight lines that only curved because it existed like a texture map being placed on a digital poly mesh, but the yellow color pulsed beneath them like it was organic and alive.

The same thing happened to Cielo around his brand, but instead of a lurid yellow, the scheme was a periwinkle blue. His glowing veins did not grow nearly as unrestrained and wild across his skin as Roland’s splinters, and his form seamlessly started radiating light to manipulate and replace itself into his Avatar, which was impressive to say the least. Cielo’s new form was massive—and by “massive” I meant “tall.” It was very tall. It had to have stood eight or nine feet high, which wasn’t working in its favor down here in a relatively cramped space. Even the rest of his demon seemed to be designed for wide-open spaces to move around because it’s arms had no joints to bend. There were no elbows to connect the biceps and there were no wrists for dexterity; they just stretched outward like the wings of a commercial airplane.

Roland on the other hand, must’ve been struggling to trigger a transformation because the fractures were flowing over his shoulder like a cast net, cascading around his back and breast; even crawling up and over the left side of his face.

Noticing that weakness, the scorpion creature readied itself for attack by rearing up on a pair of brown and yellow-green legs—human-looking legs—and exposed human-looking arms and a human-looking, but ghoulish, face. So, the arachnid attributes were just backpacking on what was basically a zombie or whatever creature of the night preferred here. A whole list of analogies could have been used, but none of us were eager about completing it, the creature included.

Hastily, it lunged towards Roland at inhuman speed. Monster or human, muscles can do a lot when the brain isn’t there to tell the body not to rip itself apart, but fortunately for Roland, bullets were quicker and pierced through one of the creature’s kneecaps. Not long after another shot rang out and shattered the other kneecap, bringing it down in front of Roland and not-entirely-Cielo.

With its foot, not-Cielo crushed the monster’s skull. Afterwards Adil let out an excessive snort, really accentuating the “hmph” sound, and grunted at the end as if to verbalize some comment how that wasn’t all that tough and that the monster went down unexpectedly easy.

Cielo, through his Avatar, spoke to Roland and said, “You’ll get them next time.”

Speaking it must’ve been a jinx because that offer just turned out to be right then anyway.

A couple more of the scorpion-man creatures came crawling out of the darkness, snarling a deep, guttural noise.

Then, to my left across the intersection, Adil let out a stressed shout.

“Argh, fuck! Damn it!”

He had tried to spin around, but it wasn’t in time before another one of those monsters had pounced at him from behind. Adil struggled and lashed about, trying to get the creature off of him, but the creature was far too strong. Fortunately, he was able to wiggle his way to the side away from a strike from its stinger.

I had gotten distracted, so I wasn’t doing my job. The creature was too close, and I did not have the confidence that I wouldn’t shoot Adil by accident if I decided to take a shot at his assailant, if it could even be called an “assailant.” Whatever emotion it was that I was feeling in that instant, in simple terms it was a lot of guilt for letting Adil down.

But still, I readied my handgun, and pulled the trigger. Three shots were fired; the sound pulled the creature’s attention towards the far wall where the bullets were lodged. Then, its attention shifted towards me. In that instant there was nothing I could do, fear paralyzed me down to my core, but luckily it was just enough of an opening for a bolt of lightning to strike the monster off of Adil—hard. The strike charred a large portion of its skin; its fallout: the smell of burnt flesh.

Something as tall, if not taller, than Not-Cielo, Dyaus, stalked with great poise and power into the intersection shifting its armor-helmeted head towards me after giving a long, hard look at Adil. Although, it couldn’t have been “looking” because there was nothing where its eyes should have been. There was just a vertical dark blue pattern over denim colored face-skin instead, and yet against the pounding of it, my heart was telling me it was “looking” and “seeing.” My brain on the other hand was telling me that those ideas were just me trying to humanize it because it was humanoid.

Once the other tall Avatar was done analyzing us, it picked up the smaller scorpion creature with its left hand—which I couldn’t imagine to have been done as easily, since there were disks in between its fingers—then with its right—a forearm of a tan, geometric crystal structure—palmed the monster’s face the best it could. From both ends of the shape, long blades ejected in unison with other sickle shaped blades that had rotated free around the straight ones.

It made the shape look like a vajra.

Rather, it looked like a vajra because it was a vajra.

The forearm was a vajra, which became far more evident and revealing when the tall, armored creature held its arm at rest with the blades still extracted. Then, everything came together for me as if I was looking at an ancient sculpture displayed in a museum instead of a tall living thing: the art history classes paying off their due. Apparently, legends were real, and so were gods, for the King of Gods himself graced us this battle.

Indra hesitated before feasting on his kill, ripping off bits with ease. But, he accepted to either disregard the taste or his manners, for the rest was too hearty of a gorging to intrude on by spectating.

・・・・・・・・

“Yeah, uh… we know,” Adil replied into his receiver after some frantic squabbling about Roland not answering any transmissions. It turned out things went south. Apparently, the repairmen had been trying to contact us numerous times to report that Karma Soldiers knew about the tunnel, and had been spotted and engaged by the Embryon Tuners. The ultimate point of their call was to—by our word—motion a fortification back at our end of the cable because it would, quite literally, mean our end if the Society sieged our center. It didn’t just mean the Lokapala’s end: all of Portland, or what was left of it at least, would go down.

While Adil was dealing with the call, Roland was preoccupied with why he hadn’t been answering any of them. Shaking and doubled over close to the ground from pain and sickness, Roland let the wall support a lot of his weight as he vomited up unrecognizable insides—and outsides, presumably. It could have been anything off of something else’s body really. The pieces were chunky and discolored, most of it black and bloody; it could’ve been mistaken to be a blob monster itself, actually.

Fred, Cielo, and I had been hanging around him, albeit at a reasonable—but still supportive—distance; Cielo trying to give him encouragement said things like “That’s okay,” and “Argilla didn’t eat good either at first,” and “You’ll get used to it.” I didn’t think it had worked though. Roland never replied to any of the remarks even between hacking fits. I also didn’t think they were seeing the ailment from the right angle either. Adjacent, sure, but not where I would put the problem.

Before deciding to approach Roland, I patted around the waistband of my Load Carrying Equipment to make sure my canteen was still fastened onto it somewhere.

“Don’t eat as much next time; take smaller bites. I don’t know what’s going on when you’re, you’ve transformed, but you’re not used to eating that much… especially raw meat.”

I squatted next to Roland, but didn’t really do much else. All of his face had gone ashen and the area around his eyes was dark. Maybe if both of us were the touchy-feely kind of people, I wouldn’t have given a second thought of comforting him with a pat on the back and rubs across the shoulder like a parent to their sick child, but something about touching felt too intimate. That kind of societal conditioning, innate personality traits, or the mixture of both: the last one is where I’d put my guess.

“If you take your time, you’ll be able to recondition your body to eat more. The human body is resilient,” I said while removing my canteen from my LCE and unscrewing the cap.

Roland acknowledged the thought then turned away to gag, but he only ended up being able to spit out leftover chunks. After a few lengthy breaths, Roland took some shallow sips from the canteen.

I had pulled out a granola bar that was stashed in a pouch that should’ve been used for ammunition, and started munching on it in small bites. Like recalling a previous life revealed through a vision, scenes of my younger confronted me. They were withered and worried, confiding in Roland for aid and guidance. Many times in many settings, I asked him, out of fear of loosing a lifeline, if he was ever to leave, and every time it was the unspoken answer of only when I was ready. I wondered what that meant to me know because it felt more like someone else’s memory since it was certainly not something I lived through in this lifetime.

A previous, self-inflicted hunger, an artificial cry for help—maybe that’s where I got the habit of carrying around snacks all the time, just in case. Although, it was also just generally a good practice since a warrior’s principle is to eat when allowed because it’s unknown when one would need it.

“Oh, but I bet transforming takes a lot of energy,” I tacked on to my previous statement, “so you would probably need to replace the calories, like a werewolve or something… But, eating many smaller meals instead of three big meals is supposed to be better for you anyway. It worked for me at least.”

At that point, I was talking more to myself than to Roland or anyone else. But, Fred’s stomach decided to growl in agreement anyway.

“When I found myself not being able to stomach large meals, but was still hungry, snacking helped me out a lot.”

I fished around the snack-ammo pouch and pulled out another granola bar.

“Fred?”—I tossed one off to him—“I have enough for everyone. Adil?”

He declined.

“… Cielo?”

He also declined.

Perhaps Tuners only needed to eat their enemies and it wasn’t necessary for them to eat regular food—or if they ate regular food it was purely for pleasure. Tuning and Tuners were a relatively new integration into the regular day of post-apocalypse society, and our informant had yet to do more than grace us with more than just means to the virus itself, so currently everything about tuning had a learning curve to it.

To be on the safe side, I took it upon myself to relocate at least one more of my granola bars by smuggling it into Roland’s coat pocket that was closest to me. The floor was dirty—an absolute mess—so I wasn’t about to place it down next to him like some kind of offering at a shrine, nor was I about to wait for him to take it from my hand, because he probably wouldn’t take, either. I did not have the skill of a pickpocket. Roland was absolutely aware of what I was doing, but due to his sickness, the operation was a success without any fuss.

“It’s not white bread or crackers, but—”

“We should get moving,” Adil chimed in, having ended his call with the repairmen some time ago; the words sounded hard and rough.

Still green in the face, Roland rose slowly and straightened himself out. Then, I did the same, except smoother, easier, and without the help of the wall. Although, it was a little too fast of a transition because it caused me to get dizzy temporarily and disoriented in the head.

The rest of the traveling went by in near-silence. Adil, Fred, and I were still spooked speechless from the run-in with the scorpion-man hybrids, until about three-fourths through the rest of the way because Roland appeared to have recovered from his ailment by then for the most part.

A natural curiosity that only Roland could possibly answers had been repeating over and over in my head since the fight, so once he was well enough and the atmosphere had fortified itself again, I thought it was worth a shot with probing.

“So, Roland… what’s it like when you tune… when you’re Indra?”

He gave me a silent quizzical assessment.

“It’s… hard to explain really,” he answered.

I guess Roland thought that wasn’t a good enough answer because he collected his thoughts and continued to talk.

“When I began tuning, my body got unbearably hot. It felt far worse than any heat wave I’ve ever been stuck in. The rest… well… it’s experiencing rather than existing.”

That was an interesting way to put it.

“What do you mean by that?”

A dejected smile formed on Roland’s face.

“You know, I’m not sure myself. It just seemed like the best explanation.”

“… That’s fair, I guess. I can get that… …Is it like you’re disconnected to yourself? Indra doesn’t have eyes, yet you—or is it ‘the two of you’? Him? Them?—you moved very precisely and deliberately. Like, you looked at us, Adil and me. Could you see us?”

Roland went silent, waiting for the answer to come to him.

“No, I don’t think so. Because it wasn’t ‘seeing’ per say. It was understanding what was around me.”

The riddled speech made me start to understand more what he meant by it being an “experience,” but understanding wasn’t an option because of the fact that most of it was going over my head—which was an abnormality in itself. Roland was known for being eloquent and articulate with words and explanations, knowing the right thing to say often, in more ways than one. That’s why whenever people asked me questions I didn’t know the answers to—or how to explain them—I either directed them towards Roland or asked him myself on their behalf.

Roland and I were the ones people tended to come to when they needed solutions or something explained. In his natural state, Roland was rather unintentionally charismatic, probably because some mix of intelligence and mystery, so it wasn’t surprising people gravitated towards him when they needed help, especially since—although he would never admit it—he was a good leader. Together with Greg, they had filled both opposing ends of what made up “good leaders.” It’s probably why the Lokapala was able to survive as long as it has.

I, on the other hand, tended to attract inquiry from women and children; only if I were very close with someone else would they approach me this way, like other members of the Lokapala, for instance. I guess it’s because I was non-threatening, therefore more approachable, and over time, this is how I was able to gain the role of being a good confidant and trustable to Fred and his friends.

Roland had continued to say something after his last statement, but my brain didn’t process what my ears were hearing, so I had to ask him to repeat what he said.

“But, I still had all of my senses, so maybe I could see,” he repeated.

Well, that was conflicting. I probably should’ve just asked Cielo what it’s like because he had far more experience with tuning. But, honestly, I don’t know if he could’ve even explained it any better. That’s not to say I don’t trust his intelligence. If anything, I didn’t have faith in myself for the comprehension. It was understandings under the matter of things that weren’t human trying to be comprehended through a human perspective: it couldn’t work. So, there wasn’t much worth in asking any more about it.

・・・・・・・・

While approaching the end of the cable, a group of voices could be heard conversing. Whether it was muddled from distance or from extra white noise emitted from whatever was in the cable that could do that, I myself couldn’t make out what the voices were saying that well, but Roland must’ve heard loud and clear because he butted into their conversation and answered their question with a steady, authoritative answer.

“Lokapala will lead them,” he said as we passed from the cable into a large, open room, still made of concrete and steel, which lead to the surface. A bit of light could be seen peaking down at us from above through the opening at the end of the stairs.

Cielo—excited to see his fellows, his comrades—let out a large smile and an upbeat greeting to which a tall woman with long pink hair, some of it curled up into two buns at the top of her head, exclaimed his name in reply. She was one of a group of three who all looked a little too out of place and slightly unreal in an unnatural sense, but all of it made logic sense when considering how Cielo looked and dressed. Each of them had colored hair, which wasn’t all that abnormal since dyes existed, but the abnormality was their eyebrows and eyes were perfectly colored to match. They all wore some kind of form-fitting grey uniform, personalized by varying conglomerations of articles and marks of orange paint, that perfectly fit to their individual proportions.

The man with the green hair and markings on his hood, who was the tallest of them all, must’ve been Gale because Cielo and Fred had been referred to a “Gale” of that likeness. The woman who was friendly with Cielo must’ve been Argilla, but that guess was still up for error. The last of them though, the one with silver hair, I haven’t heard of them mentioned prior, or maybe I had, and I just hadn’t remembered or paid enough attention. That was more likely, to be honest.

The group examined us blankly, suspiciously, and some impossible combination of both as we met them face on. Then, Roland, in effort to appease them, lifted his left fist to eye level so the brand on the back of his hand was brandished for the Embryon to unmistakably see.

“Now we’re even?” Roland asked the three.

Unless my imagination was wrong, what he said wasn’t so much of a formal question as it was rhetoric, and a bit of cockiness dressed the smirk on his face.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Roland explains to the Embryon that he had become a Tuner, the Lokapala and Embryon make their way to the Internment Facility where many of Old Portland’s people are kept imprisoned. Both Tuners and non-Tuners work to devise and execute a plan to free the captives from becoming fodder. Once all is said and done, an irreversible choice is thought over to benefit the Lokapala as a whole.

The mutual consensus between the Lokapala and the Embryon was to let Roland and Cielo’s Leader, the one with the silver hair and blank stare, have some time to discuss whatever it was that leaders of a small band of irregulars talk about. Although, the fellow didn’t seem like the one who did much talking. Nevertheless, the two of them were left to their devices, across the room out of earshot, leaving the rest of the Embryon to cluster and gossip amongst themselves and myself. Adil and I were playing the parts of the loners, minding our own businesses, until Cielo had called me over for various hearsay confirmations.

“Roland’s not going to betray you guys, trust me,” I said to reaffirm their decision to let us help them.

“How do we know we can trust you?” the woman with the long pink hair barked, “You’re one of them, too, aren’t you?”

By that, she most certainly meant that I was a part of the Lokapala. Regardless of our reputation, whatever negativity it was to them, Cielo took to my defense.

“Come on, Argilla. Okay, yeah, some of those Lokapala guys weren’t that friendly, sure, but Holland is a good guy. He and Fred are nice. Plus, Gale says he trusts that Roland guy. Right, Gale?”

The man with the green hair under a hood just stared at his comrade, arms crossed, like he was about to retract his previous statement about Roland being honorable and trustworthy.

“Roland isn’t that fond of the Karma Society,” I said in attempts to defuse the situation, “I mean, none of us are for that matter. We just… cooperate”—which wasn’t the right word for what I was trying to convey—“with them sometimes because it’s that or we die… and we’re already dying… …I know Roland’s not going to ‘sell you out’ because he could’ve just been working for them instead, but he’s not.”

Saying that caught all of their attention, eyes glued to me because of either being surprised at what I said, wondering what I meant by that, or both of those assumptions. To ease any of their uncertainties, I explained further.

“Back when we all had day jobs, Roland was a computer engineer. Don’t ask me specifically what he did though. All I know is he was good at his job, like… really good. The Society specifically sent out scouters to recruit him. He would’ve been set for life if he took the job, but he turned them down. I don’t know the whole story, to be honest. I’m surprised the Society didn’t do something heinous like kidnap him and force him to work for them or something. Wouldn’t put it past them. But, maybe they had morals back then.”

The other two of Cielo’s comrades were a tough crowd. Judging by the looks on their faces, it wasn’t a convincing argument.

“The point is Roland didn’t help them out then, there’s no reason he’d want to help them out now, now that things are worse because of them.”

I guess the counter argument could have been that situations change and people get desperate, especially since the Society was the one putting the noose around our necks. Survival instincts, the will to live—it’s a primitive trait that’s been developing for thousands of years. To someone who didn’t know better, it was a valid argument, and unfortunately Roland’s character and motivations were something that could only be explained and understood from spending time with him, getting to know him, like anyone. So, there wasn’t much concrete evidence besides personal testament to his intentions.

The man with the green scheme, Gale, must have picked up on this rational, so he inquired about the exposition in a flat, monotone voice.

“How can you verify that information?”

Or, maybe not—at first I thought it was a poorly plotted joke that had no hopes of making sense, but he was dead serious.

“You can just ask him yourself.”

My words trailed off quietly until it was a complete silencing in respect to Cielo’s leader approaching their tribe. Without any words, almost telepathically, it seemed like the three of them all subconsciously knew what he had to say to them, and ranked and filed accordingly. Roland came over, with Fred and Adil in tow, presumably to do the same to me. Except, Roland, the rest of the Lokapala, and I weren’t quite on the same level of wavelength frequency as the Embryon seemed to function on.

Their plotting sounded pretty straight forward: a group of the guys would do a bit of reconnaissance of the Internment Facility before the rest of us would make our moves. Roland had radioed some guys to fill in our manpower gap, and they were expected to arrive shortly. It was decided we were to wait for them on the surface, for whatever reason, so the Embryon started making their way topside, clanking their feet against the metal staircase and terraces with each step. Roland and Fred followed at the back of the Embryon while Adil and I held the tail end of the entourage. I completely forgot about the one Karma guy who had been there the entire time, but he must’ve had other plans because he wasn’t following us out, and just kind of looked at us with an anxious, concerned expression as we did.

“Seems you were getting buddy-buddy with the AI,” Adil remarked with a bit of a gruff sound as we climbed. The gruffness could have just been how he normally sounded, since his voice was naturally a little rough, but he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about the current events either.

“Well, we have to work with them, don’t we?” I responded and gave him a flattened sideways glance, “They deserve our cooperation at minimum, kind of like being at a job. But, if we started being nice to each other, it wouldn’t have to be such a chore. Maybe then they’d even start to like us.”

AI, Tuner, human—it shouldn’t be looked at like a division, because it wasn’t. A concept, an organization, the Karma Society: that was our enemy, our mutual enemy. The Society might have forged the Embryon, but from what I’ve heard from them and of them, they sure didn’t sound like they were with the Society.

While topside, the surface was a lot more yellow and orange looking than I remembered. The light from the sun before always seemed neutral, but that’s because everyone was naturally used to seeing such. In reality it had hints of blue, or at least that’s what I presumed, because whenever I used to take photographs of my artwork using natural light, they always seemed to come out cooler than those lit by lamps. Artificial lighting has an inherent warm, yellow glow to it, so the Lokapala half of the group wasn’t as agitated, but this looked different—brighter—and for the Embryon who had been used to cool blues and grays of overcast skies, it was alien and unnerving. But, resident of the Junkyard or not, a blazing black sun looming over us from above was not natural no matter how it was looked at.

In the grand scheme of existence, it had been like that for only a short amount of time. Five years to be exact. Except, the nitpickiness of an actual date and time was give or take. Official reports blamed the Karma Society and ultimately the Cybershaman for the sun’s corrupted state and its mass exposure of the Cuvier Syndrome, a seemingly supernatural disease that caused those in contact with sunlight to turn to stone. The reason the Society was able to exist the way it did on the surface was because it was encased in a massive dome, like something a child would dream up so the outside could be air conditioned as well as the house.

The Karma Society did not air condition their outside, and the shift in temperature from the cool underground to the hot surface caused the lenses of my glasses to fog up.

Adjacent from the entrance to the underground there was a large, factory-like building that was three stories high, and it was the target of our next operation. Once the rest of the Lokapala arrived, Shestov and Tizi were sent off to quickly shuffle through the facility, leaving the rest of us to wait and prepare the best that we could, which wasn’t really much aside from mentally preparing. But at least for the Embryon and Roland, they were able to adjust their Avatars accordingly with an appliance called a terminal.

Terminals were Karma technology, and I’ve never seen one function. However, Cielo’s leader, Serph, knew how to operate the appliance and was able to access the software they needed thanks to a CD that shared a heavy likeness to the CDs Roland used when burning data for storage or transfer. Apparently, from what I was able to gather from eavesdropping, it was used for personal downloads of individualize marital and meditative practices—“mantra”—for their Avatars.

The idea of how the downloads worked made Roland skeptical, given the faces he was making as the Embryon explained it, and I couldn’t blame him. According to them, once downloaded, the mantra was inherently in the Avatar’s subconscious stock. Once the mantra was mastered—however that was accomplished—the Tuner’s Avatar would become more skilled. Roland queried to the Embryon how this was possible considering it was merely computer data, not organic, without a nexus, but the only answer that awaited him was that they did not know. None of the Embryon questioned its methods since they have always known it to be truth.

Hesitantly, but without outward fear, Roland followed suit with using the machine just as the rest of them had before him.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large mass shuffle by, grabbing my full attention. I casually went to investigate to find Johnny hauling crates of goods off into a secluded section of the warehouse like section of the facility.

“Uh, Johnny, can I ask what you are doing?”

Johnny gave a noticeable jump to the question, and not even stopping to rest replied: “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m setting up shop.”

I thought ‘ _…What…?_ ’ but what actually came out of my mouth was “Why?”

“You’re asking a lot of self-explanatory questions, Holland. Your point?”

I thought I had said the “Why?” in a flat enough disposition of disbelief, but I guess it was not enough for Johnny.

“I mean, you really think you’re going to make a sale here?”

In some sense that actually was a dumb question because an operation was preparing to undergo, and whenever that happened, fights were likely to follow. But, I’d find it a crude and cruel joke if he thought about charging his own people when in need.

“No, no. But, if you happen to find any plants, I’ll be willing to bargain. This is—”

Johnny was cut off by the stirring of the mass exodus of the rest of the Lokapala to gather outside and divide plans and orders because Shestov and Tizi had returned from their scouting. Even the Embryon who were still huddled around the terminal made their way outside with the rest of us.

Most of the men were shaky and displeased regarding the Embryon, so the majority gave them a sizable distance of separation. Roland, Adil, and myself played messenger between the two groups, intermingling between both, probably accomplishing everything in the least efficient way possible. It was all rather foolish; silly, uncalled for, child-like behavior. Gale had voiced agreement coincidentally, without external prompting, while the Embryon more so waited for the Lokapala’s consensus than organizing their own plan of attack.

“This is inefficient,” he had said to me, “why do we not just converse directly to the rest of the Lokapala?”

“I don’t know. Because they’re cautious, scared, and discriminatory? As much as I would tell them off, we don’t have the time to be fighting amongst ourselves, so we just got to work with it for now.”

From the Lokapala cluster that was starting to disperse, Roland called out to me, and the Embryon, to come over.

“Holland, I need you to be the watchkeeper and make sure no one will get into trouble.”

Oh no.

“Roland, you do know that, that is an important job, right?”

That was not to say every other role was not important—because when your body count is as low as ours, all positions are important—but the role of watchkeeper was essential. It was the role of looking over the surroundings so that emergencies could be responded to promptly. It was the role to make sure everyone was kept safe. It was a role that required a lot of focus and attention.

If I was bad at one thing, it was being attentive. And if too many things were happening at once I got flustered and caused errors, or my mind shut down and I took longer than average to respond. Both of those scenarios could cost people their lives in this setting. Not to mention, just thinking about sitting around made my leg bounce.

“Yeah, I know,” Roland replied and proceeded to walk off with the Embryon to start the mission.

・・・・・・・・

In the prison portion of the facility there was a catwalk encompassing the outer room maybe two stories up. It was high enough to be out of everyone’s way—since there’s not much instinct to look up unprompted—and there was enough of a visual reach to see all of the cellblocks, according to Shestov anyway. The layout of the block was a simple square pattern with its own walkways and catwalks, but navigating the ways might get tricky in a hurry, especially since there were a few dead ends, for whatever reason, and the lighting was funky in a few sections.

Some of us already moved into their positions in various empty cells and hiding places, but I was taking a few detours since Shestov neglected to tell me exactly how to get up there. As I was climbing the staircase, hopefully, up to the catwalk, my receiver gargled to life, sputtering what I assumed to be my name to grab my attention.

“I thought I told you guys not to do anything until I got into position,” I replied back into the receiver.

There was no one on the other end, just dead air.

Then a call came in explaining James was hauled off by a couple of Karma soldiers, most likely to be killed then eaten one way or another. It was unknown if the soldiers were Tuners or not, but the assumption was that they were.

That was bad. But, there was nothing I could do about it, because if they were Tuners, then my pistols wouldn’t make a dent into them, not into a demon’s body without a precise strategy. Not to mention I’m not brave enough for that kind of heroism. Running around this place was the easiest way to be someone’s next meal, as James and the rest of us all figured out too personally. So, I needed to get Roland’s attention, but there was nothing I could do about that either.

Roland wasn’t carrying any type of communication device because we were short the extra receiver, and it was a bit more important for the rest of us to communicate between each other. He and the Embryon were all Tuners, there wasn’t much of a reason to contact us for help or backup, because if they couldn’t handle it themselves, then we were all screwed. But, they were also positioned to be their own cluster that’d move freely throughout the facility, intending to do most of the heavy lifting of the operation, so they moved into action last.

By now they were probably making their way through the warehouse section of the building, which connected into the main facility. All I could really do now was hope that Roland and the others would run into James and the Karma soldiers by chance, and wait around for any kind of confirmation they were all alright. That’s all I could do: hope and wait. So I did. And every minute that went by where Roland and Company didn’t find their way to the prison or someone didn’t tune in for a status update certainly felt like more than sixty seconds.

The inactivity of the prison floor left me wondering who was going to tell James’s girlfriend what had happened, or more importantly: how we were going to tell James’s girlfriend what happened, since she lived within the safety of the City. It would probably be through letter. That’s how they typically talked. But, if something serious happened, she deserved to have someone there with her when she found out. Grief wasn’t something someone should take on alone, unless that’s all they know on how to heal. We, the Lokapala, have all become more than a little numb towards loss—some of us more than others—but comforting those who lost most never gets easier.

They say practice makes perfect, but this wasn’t the kind of thing anyone should have to regularly practice, and fortunately none of us would have to for the time being. Eventually, James had called saying Roland and the Embryon had essentially effectively slaughtered the soldiers that captured him. It would’ve been nice to see if he was doing alright, but I had to let him go preemptively because someone started to make the cellblocks a bit more lively in the sense of distress, and that someone was the Jailer, warden to the prison.

The Jailer wasn’t human, not at the moment. Whatever his Avatar was vaguely resembled a malnourished horse, its skin sticking to its bones like putrid wallpaper, with many distinctively human features like hands, legs, and arms. A large bowl shaped hat, decorated with tassels hanging off of the rim the entire way around, sat atop its horsehead and a maroon cape was tied around its shoulders much like how a child would tie a blanked around their shoulders. For a creature that had such muscle atrophy, it lugged around a large, metal horseshoe that looked unbearably heavy, and yet, the creature made handling it look easy and effortless.

Every once in a while it let out a piercing neigh and shook it’s head wildly like the way horses do, and with every thrust of its bony pelvis I could feel my heart speed up a lot faster in my chest. A strange pressure crushed against my chest as anxiety and uneasiness flooded around my core, causing me to wiggle myself farther back onto the catwalk as quietly as I could manage towards the wall to keep my cover by the help of darkness from the ill lighting.

“Who the hell are you?” Jailer said in a cocky, authoritative tone. All of the air escaped my lungs and I felt my stomach sink completely out of my body. Not that it was any relief, the sound of an opening door was what pulled its attention towards the entrance of the room and not upwards towards me. I wasn’t in the position to be able to see who was entering, since I was almost directly above the entrance, but that got cleared up real fast.

“Wait… You’re the Asuras that escaped from purgatory!”

The Embryon started to tune instantly to the sight, and a large deep blue and icy white colored Avatar wasted no time in taking haste in hopes to be the first to strike. But, an amorphous purple-black binding stopped the Avatar dead in its tracks. It basically seemed like it materialize out of nowhere. The rest of the Embryon’s Avatars were rustling about in agitation, concerned for their comrade.

“No one escapes from me!” the horse-Avatar neighed in fury.

Not long after that the rest of the group was also rendered immobile before ever getting their chance to retaliate. A low, guttural cackling echoed around the room.

“Go directly to jail!” the creature said, its free hand clutched around the throat of the Avatar with the tall white crown, and hoisted the Avatar, who was still unable to move, up into the air. One by one the Jailer tossed all of his inoperable opponents into the cell below me, which if I recalled correctly from my miss adventures, was the 1N row of cells.

Someone was positioned to have broken into one of the 1N cells.

To make sure of the exact number, I peaked my head over the edge of the catwalk while I was lying down on its grated flooring while the Jailer wasn’t looking. 1N-04: that’s where everyone was.

“Hey, whoever is in the 1N cell, what’s your exact position?” I said into the handheld receiver. We were all set to the same hertz wavelength, so everyone should have gotten my message.

“I’m in 1N-02. What’s up?”

“Alright guys, this is where things are going to get tricky.”

Luckily, they were only two cells over, so not much footwork would need to be done for a quick retreat, if needed be, but if I messed up for even a millisecond over my watch, someone was going to get captured and killed—which was exactly why I was not too keen on Roland’s choice for watchkeeper.

In the midst of collectively trying to devise how to take our next steps, a couple of the other guys cut in saying they found out something important before. Apparently, the Jailer, the warden of the place, was very picky with what he chose to dine on. We weren’t going to get anywhere with the Jailer around, so someone was going to need to have the brain and think of what could be done with it to work in our favor. I wish they had told the rest of us about that sooner because none of us seemed to have any ideas off of the top of our heads; and, of course, we needed this plan solidified sooner rather than later.

“For now lets proceed with the best we can do right now: break Roland and the Embryon out of that cell. Direct them to the west side to where Shestov is. Hopefully, he and I will have thought about what to do with the Jailer’s food by then.”

Maybe they didn’t figure out what was going on with the Jailer’s food until recently, but I wished that I had known about it sooner because I didn’t think well under pressure and I didn’t know if Shestov was in the same boat. There was nothing that could be done about it, so I just looked and watched like I was supposed to do, hoping for a miracle to happen in the meantime.

Aside from being a bit more chatty than necessary, the guys made swift work of busting Roland and the Embryon out of the cell. Perhaps after all, it was a good thing I was up here, making sure things ran smoothly, because lock picking was not a skill I shared with the rest of the Lokapala, or rather: the majority, because I didn’t think Roland knew how to lock pick either. But, I guess now he wouldn’t need to know because his Avatar probably had enough brute strength to tear a metal door down. From what I remembered, it sure looked like it had the muscle to do it at least.

Back at the cable, Indra was able to tear limbs and appendages off of those scorpion-men like it was soft bread. From the little I saw: he ate them like they were soft bread too, tearing off chunks at a time, fitting as much as it could in its mouth. From how it looked, he probably swallowed each bite whole. It was no wonder why he got sick afterwards.

Roland got sick after eating something his stomach wasn’t used to handling. That was our key on what to do with the Jailer’s food.

“Shestov, I have an idea,” I said into the receiver, and then continued to explain the information and plan to contaminate the food I had just devised.

Luckily the Jailer wasn’t out to kill because, unfortunately, the first time the Embryon tried to traverse the maze of catwalks, the Jailer caught up with them, so the whole process had to be repeated over again with a bit of frustration from the rest of the guys. But, the next time around, they pulled it off, so everything had fallen into place. Now, there was a decisive plan, and the best we, as the Lokapala, could do was over. All we could do now was wait for them to deal with the Jailer.

“Give that asshole hell, guys,” I muttered to myself as the Embryon and Roland weaseled their way out of the cellblock to execute the rest of our plan.

・・・・・・・・

Cries of jubilee deafened the outside of the internment facility. Parents were reunited with children, significant others reunited with their lovers, all because our friends were freed from becoming fodder. It was the Lokapala’s first taste of success—victory—in a very long time. They too joined in the excitement: jumping, hugging each other, and even crying with joy and relief, but even with all of the happiness, the unfortunate truth was the counterbalance.

Fred had isolated himself from the others and stood quietly along the side of the building, contemplating a tattered, child-size newsboy cap that he held in his hands. I didn’t do anything to comfort him. Neither did Roland though. But, Roland knew. Roland knew Fred was distressed and sad, and all he did was look on like an alienated spectator. I understand teenagers are too cool for their parents and needed to be left alone most of the times, but Roland was supposed to be there for Fred—and he wasn’t.

The worst of it was I felt apathetic about the whole ordeal. If anything, I felt sad about it, but only because my brain told me, logically, I should feel sad and sorry for Fred and angry with Roland.

A glossy film started to coat Roland’s eyes. Before he could do anything about it, Gale had stepped in and started talking to Fred because he was about to throw away the olive branch his father gave him. I remember Johnny had bargained ferociously with Greg for that plant, although once he found out it was a gift for Fred, he stopped pressuring him about it.

The truth was I shouldn’t have been wasting time by standing around since I was assigned to escort the residents back home. Adil was decided to have been our stand-in leader to lead them back to the mainland, so I made my way to find Adil and James to round everyone up to be taken back, which was difficult, but not surprising. Then once everyone was accounted for, we went back the same way we came, through the Cable, because that was our only option during the daylight. It wasn’t going to be a fun trip if we ran into any more rogue Tuners since Roland and the Embryon were staying stationed in the City until we got back.

I didn’t have a single clue what they were going to be doing in the meantime. Maybe see the sights if they were feeling ambitious. Sala Park housed a wide range of botanicals like luxury goods, because they were now. Rumor had it that Roland’s cactus was grafted from one of their plants in the section of the park reserved to be a cactus garden. But, even though I never knew Johnny to be a liar, I don’t know how much I trust his tales. I’m too gullible sometimes.

Their absence brought up a valid concern though. Warfare is different now because combat has changed.

“Hey, Adil. Where did you put that CD Roland burned so we could… you know… implement the virus.”

Adil just looked at me funny, suspiciously: hard eyes and tightly wrung features.

“I don’t like where that’s going.”

He really struggled to get that response out in a nice manner.

“We’ve needed better equipment for ages, but now that Tuners have been showing up, what we’ve been able to do is near nothing. Roland can’t be our only effective combatant, so I’ll say it straight: I’m volunteering myself to become a Tuner.”

When I watch Roland tune, there’s this sense of power to it. I don’t say that in the sense that it allows him physical prowess, but when I see him tune, he’s taking charge of his life. That’s all that choice ever was: being able to do something, to stop feeling sorry for himself and change. He’s able to accomplish that one thing that I’ve been searching for most of my life, to break stagnation, to have the power to act on what I want to achieve, to finally fight against the unfairness and level the playing field between myself and them.

By becoming a Tuner, I could finally achieve that.

Adil could have eased into his response to that like “Holland, you’re sensible. You don’t need me to act like your father. I know your smart enough to know that’s a bad decision.” Or better yet: “That is not a choice I agree with. But, it’s your choice, and I will respect that.” Except, that wasn’t the case. Adil did not skip a beat this time, and what he actually said was “Are you out of your fucking mind?!”

His words were scalding, which made his breath heavy, accentuated at the stop.

“Adil, you saw him fight. There’s no way we can keep up with that.”

Adil stopped walking with the group, and sternly stared me down. We were protecting the back end, so the rest just kept moving on without notice.

“Yeah, and I also saw him get sick from eating a man and a half.”

Something about his demeanor changed, as if the whole idiom about eyes being the window to the soul being true. They looked uncharacteristically soft, glossing over from pain and loss, like it was a glimpse into everything he buried deep down because this world wasn’t kind to those with compassion. They looked like another life was crippling before his eyes and he could stop it if he tried hard enough. They looked like no matter what I said to reassure him, it wouldn’t ease his agony.

I had to look away. Half of it was because it’s off-putting and awkward-feeling seeing someone express sentiments they’re not known for. It made me wonder if he opened up to Roland this way when he decided to be a Tuner. He must have. Then, the other half was to make sure the group hadn’t wandered off too far. They had, so I started walking away to catch up with James and the rescued captives.

“Adil, my entire life has been spent trapped behind the thoughts of my own powerlessness, my lack of ability to directly influence things I want in my own life. This seems like my chance to finally do something for myself.”—my temperament got hot and my voice got hard—“I’m tired of this existence! I’m fucking tired of shit I can’t change! Now I finally have that option! And no offense Adil, but you’re not my father. I can make decisions for myself.”

Someone else’s anger started boiling in my blood, and yet, at the same time, I wholly recognized it as my own emotions. Frustration from stagnation, frustration from paralysis, frustration from an existence controlled by others—it all wasn’t new, yet it felt different, like a separate fire was fuelling the ire.

I fucking hated living under the Society, and their power, because they were the ones that decided how we lived and how we died, not giving a single damn about us. We were nothing but excess scraps to them. It was damn obvious. But, there were remnants of a thought in my head that this wasn’t about the Karma Society.

“Holland, do you understand how serious this is?” Adil said, still solemn, “Roland can’t come back from this, and you won’t be able to either. You live with the choice.”

“I know.”

Even though it never has been, something was telling me everything would be all right if I did it. That’s what everyone liked to tell me when I got upset about my life’s positions at least. But this time, for some reason, instead of just going along with it, I believed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to my writing stamina not exactly being fit for long pieces of work, it’s very likely that this story will go on a hiatus after chapter 5, which will be an “intermission” of the story. I’m not sure how long the hiatus will last, but as of right now the plan is to still update every 3 months.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in Old Portland, Holland and Adil take some time to prepare after having returned the captives back home. Once reunited with the rest of the Lokapala and Embryon back in Karma City, the two forces devise a plan to infiltrate the Karma Tower. Their plans seem to be working, but not well enough, so Holland is sent off to meet with the Embryon and Roland to aid their plan of attack.

It was dark. The blackness stretched out endlessly around me, extending to a horizon far off in the distance that was only lit by the means of luminescent flowers—lotuses—and the many glowing petals that wafted forth from inside the bloom. I was on an island; it’s ground glowing from veins that overtook it like the growth of plant roots, amongst many, and a sea of endless, dark depth. Underneath the darkness, the little, yet bright, light that was given off by their means revealed that my surroundings were not in fact black, but many variations of dark blues, violets, and purples.

I wasn’t alone on the island, for two figures opposed me in eerie form. A man, taking the form of Roland, stood adjacent to another individual who appeared to have been myself, but there was a marker that differentiated them from the persons they looked like for the irises of their eyes were illuminated as inhuman colors. “Roland” looked at me from behind lurid yellow eyes, and the one of my likeness stared with irises of a rich orange.

“I am Idamdra,” the one like myself had introduced themself as, almost as if knowing I was making assumptions, “I am all aspects of yourself.”

Idamdra’s speech was poise and elegant just like what you would expect from a dream’s almighty, ethereal being. It’s fluidity leaked over from their lips all the way to their figure, any and all motions done elegantly, all except their posture which was solid, sturdy as associated with the essence of power and authority.

“I present like this now because I choose to. I could have wings or horns if I wanted to, but for now this is fitting for the role,” Idamdra spoke, knowing exactly what was running through my head and anything I could say next.

“So, you’re not always like this then?”

The veil slipped a little.

“No, not really.”

“… That’s fair… …So, if you’re ‘all aspects of myself’ then you, Idamdra, are my Avatar?”

“That’s a part of it, yes.”

That didn’t seem right. Avatars were the Tuner’s self, their soul, and aspects of who they truly were. Idamdra is wise, spiritual; Idamdra is Indra, King of the Gods, himself, strong in mind, soul, and prowess—the first to have been enlightened. Idamdra was far too important of an Avatar to be mine.

“You think that way because you have trained yourself to lessen yourself for safety.”

That time, it was Indra through Roland’s form that spoke.

“But, you are more than those ways. When you are in the right mind, you will understand.”

Then, grogginess had over taken me as I opened my eyes, searching for a nightstand that wasn’t there because of an old habit formed from before the apocalypse. The first thing I used to do was look at my cellphone after waking. Although my cellphone had been long lost, there was a nightstand next to my bed in my apartment, but this place did not have one. Realizing that, I sat up as fast as a sleep start would send me, but this was alertness from foreign surroundings instead of an adrenaline rush for my body to make sure I wasn’t dead.

The living space was a small singular room, like my own apartment, with no screens or curtains for privacy between the kitchen appliances and the bed. There was one singular light in the low celling that struggled to light the entire room, but it was enough to get a glimpse of Adil sitting on a ragged, aged couch closer to the door of the place, reading something on loose sheets of printer paper.

“Adil,” I said, sleepily, “why am I in your apartment?”

“Because I don’t have a key to yours,” he replied without moving his fixation off of the pieces of paper. I think we both had a moment and thought, “that would be weird” to ourselves. The pages he was reading must have been pieces of a draft to Roland’s novel. If Adil saw it necessary to do some leisure reading I must’ve been out for a while, but when I asked, he said I was only out for forty or forty-five minutes tops—significantly a lot less than I was assuming.

Like I had just gone through some strenuous activity, my body ached and felt stiff in the muscles and joints as I rose off of the bed, and there was a black pit where my recent memory should have been, unable to determine what memories were real and what recollections were dreams. I thought about how I thought I was a Tuner, so I excused myself to Adil’s bathroom where I gave myself a good, hard look in the mirror. All Tuners had marks, their Brands, to determine who they were, but there was no evidence anywhere on my skin of having been infected by Atma. Maybe I was wrong and becoming a Tuner was all a dream too.

Adil was surprisingly quick to his feet because when I returned he was standing by the door ready to reconvene with Roland and the others, but he wasn’t one to lollygag so maybe it wasn’t surprising he was set to go. Not wanting to waste any more time, we left the apartment and made our way to the cable that ran under the Willamette.

Assuming we do not run into any problems, the walk through the cable should only take about ten to fifteen minutes give or take, but even still, our plans were time sensitive, and I knew of a way to make things quicker. Starring into the circular mouth of the cable was like staring into an abyss: dark, damp, endless, and unsettling. It loomed over our heads waiting to devour us like so many others before us. There was nothing left to do but to trust in myself and trust Idamdra.

“ _If you wish to summon me, mediate on ‘om mani padme hum.’_

_Then, call me forth with my name._ ”

OM—the sound of the universe. It is by which all things come and all things end, sounding forth from Indra’s bell like ripples across water, washing away all impurities from which the sound stands for. From it, the heat of purifying fire radiated inside my mouth, leaving my tongue hot and burning; Idamdra guiding every mean like a master unto a student.

MANI—the jewel by which the mind and soul are enriched. Through the jewel is how one shall reach the truest state: enlightenment. Its wealth, like a lightning strike upon a dry field, is what shall provide relief from any poverty of the mind, and what spread its heat from my mouth to my throat and across my face as my physical being called out to shift and alter.

PADME—the lotus that breaks free from the mud and murk. Untainted by the grime from which it grows forth from, its bloom, now a wildfire, is what shall grant me the wisdom and understanding of this reality and its ultimate emptiness—the emptiness from which OM rings. This truth a guide: Idamdra, a mere vessel for it, encased in a blinding white light around me.

HUM—the unison of the way and the wisdom for it all—both necessary and inseparable. Together they are unbreakable like the diamond and powerful like the bolt of lightning. Thunder-armed: Indra, his bolt breaking through the flesh as easily as if it were the storm-grey sky.

‘ _Idamdra._ ’

For a moment my vision went white, like I had stared directly into the sun, but even after the light subsided, I didn’t think I went back to seeing, but there was the world still around me in sight. That non-descriptive explanation Roland gave about what it’s like to be an Avatar all made sense because Avatar bodies didn’t see, they read. They read information like a processor and acted accordingly to that instead. I’d never had a mind’s eye, but I’d imagine if I had one, it would be something like how Avatars see but with a few different steps.

There also was this sense of knowing the third person point of view. Without ever having seen myself, because I was reading Data, I knew how I appeared; over toned muscles: a white net patterned amidst dark skin that mimicked a likeness to Indra. It didn’t seem all that strange that there where more similarities of varying designs—like Idamdra’s helmeted head with a form around the face that resembled a happori—but the likeness must have seemed peculiar or odd to Adil.

Existing this way also wasn’t limited to human sensory, so by reading, everything was clearer—sharper—and unmistakable, and yet it wasn’t omniscience either. One thing it couldn’t read, that only a human could interpret, was emotion. As vast as Idamdra’s insight was, it couldn’t clue me in on just how uncomfortable existing this way made Adil. Sure, they understood the information that displayed his body language—ridged and fidgety—but just what exactly it meant was left up to my interpretation, not Idamdra’s interpretation.

Wasting no time, I squat down and pulled my arms away from my body to signal for Adil to hop onto my back so I could carry him. I didn’t have any solid proof using my Avatar as a mode of transportation would be quicker, but using my Avatar as a mode of transportation was going to be quicker than him walking along.

“You’re joking, right?” Adil said in a very flat tone.

“Come on,” I replied, “would you rather me carry you bridal style? We don’t have time for this.”

That got him to comply.

I was never good at measuring weight; always down played the guess, so saying Adil felt light on my back wasn’t much of a reassuring statement. It’s not like he magically got lighter; rather I magically got stronger. The strength from sheer size alone was probably enough to counteract the weight because Idamdra was easily as tall as Indra and Dyaus.

Then, with Adil all settled, holding tight, the fifteen to twenty minute trip under the river was squandered to four to five minutes of traveling. Idamdra was allowed me to recall every corridor and turn we traveled before like I was a seer with foresight, which in itself was an amazing feat, so I was able to confidently traverse the path with ease.

At the other end of the cable, some of the guys were resting underground to get out of the surface heat while everyone was waiting for Adil and I to get back. They had been lounging around, engaged in some kind of talk, until they heard something large making its way towards the entrance into the cable. That “something large” was me. But, they didn’t know that, so they stood straight, put their guns at the ready, and told me to stand down or they would start shooting.

“Relax, guys,” Adil said, still on my back, “it’s us.”

The guys lowered their weapons, but not without uncertain and quizzical looks darting back and forth between each other and me. Then, Adil started tapping at my chest, wanting to be let down, so I knelt down and let him go. He puttered around a little awkwardly, but walked off any disorientation rather easily. I didn’t think of myself any more agile while running through the tunnels, but perhaps Adil wasn’t one to agree with that and found himself a little dizzy and rattled from the jostling and quick turns.

Eyeing me up and down, one of the guys, said: “Roland’s gonna have to see this eventually, you know… Good luck with that.”

I didn’t know if he was talking about being a Tuner in general or the likeness my Avatar was to his, but either way he was right.

“Yeah, I know,” I said, breathing a heavy sigh. Some of the guys flinched or recoiled because it came out far more guttural than what could be considered friendly because I was still in Idamdra’s form.

“We can worry about that later,” Adil said, quieting everyone and grabbing our attention, “right now we have to worry about our next plan of attack.”

That being said, I tired to revert back to human form, but Idamdra didn’t really give any instructions on how to revert back, so I didn’t know how to do that exactly. Asking the rest of the guys to wait while I figured it out, I stammered back and forth as my mind went blank from not knowing what to do.

When I say my mind went blank, I don’t mean it in the typical sense where miscellaneous thoughts wafted by like a leaf in an autumn breeze; my mind really was void of any kind of function or thought. If anyone said anything: I didn’t hear them. If I needed to say anything: I couldn’t speak to them either. And I stayed in that state for a solid fifteen minutes, if not longer. I could tell they were getting annoyed, because although most senses were nonfunctional, I could still see, but it was more like realizing after the fact than at the moment. To be honest, it was annoying to me too.

But, amidst the dark and uncertainty, a humble thought did eventually come into my head: I wanted to revert back to normal; I wanted to be human again. Although I could never be truly, wholly human, but whatever power that be allowing everything to work was listening and understood what I mean because after then my body began to swelter in heat, the same feeling I felt when transforming before, and the Data around me began to shift and alter into my original composition.

・・・・・・・・

Adil, a couple of guys he rounded up, and I managed to hunt down Roland and the Embryon in the Processing Dome. They decided to stick close because traveling held risks of being caught and confiscated, or worse.

Avatar, to my relief, did not inherently give its host the power to “sense” or connect with other Avatar subliminally, not while both were in human form at least. I felt like it would have been a little bit embarrassing if Indra—or any of the other Avatars for that matter—were able to sense Idamdra, and essentially break the ice before I was able to do it myself. Telling him myself just seemed like one of those life events that needed to be done by being sat down and not by surprise, especially because the guys were right. This wasn’t something able to be kept secret. Roland was going to have to know. But, now didn’t seem like the time.

We only briefly reconvened to make sure both squads were on the same page: Adil’s team was to cause a diversion somewhere on the outskirts of the City while the Tuners infiltrated the Karma Tower, the central pinnacle of the City and the Society. Even though I technically should have been in the Tuner’s company for various reasons, it was for the better I kept quiet. Plus, it also meant Adil’s squad had an ace in the hole if something drastic happened.

Keeping away from the Residential District, we found a position off in the north side of the city near Sala Park.

“Anyone got any ideas?” Adil asked the group as we all stayed concealed out of sight.

No one spoke up. In repose to the silence, Adil slid me a side eyed glance like he was expecting something. It was like making eye contact with the teacher after they asked a question to the class.

“Don’t look at me. I don’t have any ideas,” I said.

“What do you mean ‘you don’t have any ideas’? You’re the smart one when Roland’s gone.”

If it were any other situation I would have taken that as flattery or a compliment.

“I don’t know! I thought we were just going to make some generic mayhem to tide the soldiers over until Roland and company finish what they’re up to.”

Adil gave my shoulder a hearty, singular pat.

“See? You do have an idea.”

But, it was not a very good one though.

“Wait—! Lets go in groups of two and spread out to divide their attention. We’ll probably be able to distract more of them that way too.”

There was six of us total there, so we divided into three groups of two: one group was to east towards the power plant, another group was to go south near the EGG Facility, and the last group was to stay at Sala Park. Each of them were then left to their devices to do whatever they felt necessary to cause some disruptions, and at best, trying not to pull any civilian residents into the mix. Even though most of them were ungrateful snobs, they weren’t our targets. The Karma Society was, and their only affiliation to it was surviving.

Adil and I paired up and stayed put at the park, which didn’t start off very eventful because there wasn’t much to cause disruptions with. It was a park. There were just trees and shrubs and apparently cacti if you looked in the right places. I didn’t know if Adil was joking or not, but one of his suggestions was that “maybe we should steal a tree and see what happens.” When I asked if he was serious he game me a scoff and said that he wasn’t, but one of the residents must’ve been by, deciding it was a nice day to get a walk around the park in, because ten minutes later a couple of soldiers were walking alongside a resident who had claimed to have seen and heard some hoodlums who did not belong in—or to—the Karma City.

There were only two soldiers accompanying the Karma resident, and they did not look pleased. The person that had called them over was a bit talkative, constantly going on about things that only semi-related to the potential Lokapala sightings in the area to where the soldiers had to forcefully butt-in to the seemingly one-man conversation that was really just complaints and paranoia. According to how the soldiers sounded our plan was working because they explained that their forces were being spread too thin with the multiple reports of Lokapala being in spread out spots so they did not have time for hearsay and baseless accounts. Technically, it wasn’t baseless because Adil and I were in fact there, but we were just good at staying out of view.

Honestly, I was a bit surprised that the makeshift plan was working, and so smoothly at that. I just remembered seeing it used in a movie once. I didn’t think it would work outside of fiction. But, from what it sounded, a lot of soldiers were being repositioned to the Karma Tower as backup to the infiltration that was taking place there, so we weren’t causing enough of a distraction.

“You think they need help in there?” Adil, talking about the situation at the Karma Tower, whispered so we wouldn’t be heard.

“They’re a group of five Tuners probably fighting ten times or more that amount of people,” I whispered back, “of course they probably need help. But, keeping their size down is an advantage in itself. I’m not a militant scholar, but isn’t that how guerrilla tactics work?”

Adil grunted in affirmation, but there was a bit of worry in his eyes. Perhaps he was worried about Roland. Having to say goodbye to another leader would in itself have been its own coup de grace. Adil wasn’t one to lead, he always considered himself better at taking orders, and neither was I. I lacked the confidence for the leadership role. The rest of the guys were at their limits too, so there wasn’t much for succession. But more likely, Adil was also just genuinely worried about him as a friend. Now that it was brought up, I started worrying about him too.

“I don’t think one more person is going to make or break it,” Adil added on.

Adil looked at me dead in the eyes. His eyes were hard and calloused.

“Go help them out,” Adil continued, “I’ll be fine.”

“Are… are you sure?”

Something was telling me that was a bad idea; that he wasn’t going to be fine if I left. Sure, there were only two soldiers that he was probably more than capable of handling now, but nothing was saying more weren’t going to swing by on their way to the Karma Tower or wherever else they were called to later. Besides, everyone else broke off into pairs and it was our job—each pair’s job—to keep the soldiers occupied and not to go rushing into the Tower playing hero and savior. Keeping to plans were how they were pulled off.

But, Adil didn’t look like he was going to take “no” for an answer because he just gave me a firm nod of his head that it was all right, so I didn’t try and argue against it. All I did was just give him a firm nod in return, and then I hastily snuck out of Sala Park undetected towards the Tower.

For a complex that was the head and heart of the city and Society’s operations, the area around the Karma Tower was eerily quiet to the point it almost bordered on being sublime. Its tall modernist architecture loomed over the city in grandeur with white concrete and stone paneling. The design itself was a series of blocks and cubes arranged in such a way that its juxtaposition against the retro-looking residential and business district buildings made it look alien and otherworldly.

Its courtyard out front was also uncharacteristically vacant. I didn’t even have to say “I assumed as much,” because there wasn’t even a single soul standing outside, and for any building of this nature and placement, it seemed more than a little abstract. If there were to have been anyone at all, it would have been at least security in the form of a handful of Karma Soldiers, but not even they were anywhere in sight. But, there couldn’t have been forced entry like a brawl outside from Roland and the Embryon because there was no blood or wreckage like there was back underwater at the cable, so perhaps it was just as easy as walking inside.

I didn’t know what I was expecting the lobby of the tower to look light, but it was just as white and weird as the outside. The giant glass façade let in a lot of natural lighting that kind of made things hard to see from glare and reflection. Everything was hypocritically spotless and clean, arranged in a way where nothing was left out of place, and my footsteps echoed on the tile floor as I made my way to the other end of the lobby that lead to the rest of the building’s interior. 

It wasn’t nearly as neatly placed the farther in I travelled. Like how it was back at the cable, there would be slight signs of struggle—dents in walls, desks overturned, and potted plants being knocked over—but the farter one got in, the worse the disarray got until it magically stopped all together. There would be some corridors, office space, and laboratories bloody and filled with gore, but a few steps in any different direction of the fighting ground were just leftover blood on the floor or walls that quickly dried up and that was it. It went on like that for many floors. Some unfortunate soldiers were still stranded behind, barely hanging onto life, scattered amongst the aftermath. One of them had even tried to grab my attention, probably to plead for their life and ask for my help, but all they were able to accomplish was brushing their palms against my pant leg, unable to curl their fingers into a grasp.

A part of my instincts made me stop and see and acknowledge the suffering life before me, this innate desire to look after my fellow man, but that was the problem: I couldn’t really consider them my fellow man. To shower compassion and forgiveness to someone who wouldn’t do the same was worthless. To take pity and tolerance on someone who wouldn’t give a second thought into pulling a trigger pointed against me at point blank was a foolish outlook. To show sympathy and mercy to someone who hadn’t given a second thought into capturing and killing our friends and family, innocent lives that didn’t disserve such a fate, was how good people got killed.

I shook my leg clean of the hand that brushed against it and walked away. There was a gaping hole in the side of the person’s torso and chunks of it were ripped clean off. Even if, by some godly power, Tuners had miraculous regenerative and healing properties, there was no way to replace the blood, so surely they would die momentarily from blood loss. But, because those lives had yet to succumb, it meant that Roland and the Embryon couldn’t have been too far off.

On the twentieth floor there was access to an open-air sky bridge, one large enough to host a helipad in the middle with plenty of room to spare. It also connected two different portions of the tower. As much as it wasn’t the time to be taking in the view, it did provide a nice view of the ruins that used to be Portland, and amidst the haste and running, I wondered if everyone back home was doing okay, but more importantly I wondered in Adil and the guys were doing okay. I know Adil, speaking for everyone, said they could handle the rest of the mission on their own, but it also wouldn’t have taken long to quickly rush over to the edge and look at the reaches of the City. Although, even if they weren’t okay, I couldn’t do anything about it all the way up here, so I kept my ignorance.

The other side looked just like the rest of the Tower’s interior: awfully lifeless spare the existence of a few potted plants and nurseries for decoration. I was one who favored white color palettes, but the way the Society used it for their interior decorating made everything seem vacant. There was no dynamism or verve to it, just an artificial, chemical poison, and it lasted that way all the way through the thirty-second floor. The one other thing I did notice though was that there was significantly a lot less carnage decorating the floors and walls, which, I guessed, was a good sign. But, the little disturbance there was lead me to a room with a glass door and small glass sections of the adjacent walls, and over the threshold there was a sign that read “Health and Wellness Center.”

Through the glass Roland, Cielo, and the rest of the Embryon were standing in a room with a separate glass façade and were facing off someone with shoulder length red hair wearing a grey suit that looked akin to what the Embryon wore. They wasted no time in revealing that they too were a Tuner and transformed into a mighty, top-heavy Avatar with two heads. Their skin burned a pure red and had golden pyramid studded armor across the shoulder length and over the outsides of the thighs.

With great force, the Avatar quickly lunged forward into an assault against the Embryon’s leader, Serph, who wasted no time in transforming themselves into their white-crowned Avatar, Varuna. The two locked themselves into an evenly matched bout, bone-blades clashing against each other, while I too wasted no time summoning Idamdra because in the corner of my vision there where two large tigers—that were on fire—ready to engage with whomever they though were appetizing enough.

One of those whoevers was Roland.

Quickly, the flaming tiger, a demon called Gdon, closest to him bounded towards him. If I was going to do anything about it, it wasn’t going to be through the door, so I punched the thick glass wall with Idamdra’s fist to weaken it and then thrust Idamdra’s whole body at the glass to break it completely and slammed square into the body of the animal-shaped Avatar.

“Who the hell are you?!” Agni, the red, two-headed Avatar growled, noticing the commotion. I didn’t bother with giving them an answer. Instead I just scolded Roland saying: “What are you waiting for? Tune!”

I didn’t wait to see what Roland decided to do. Shards of glass marred both Gdon and my Avatar, pieces sticking out of our limbs and torso, causing streams of warm blood to trickle over our hides, and the claws of the tiger Avatar broke my skin in a panicked pace. By Idamdra’s will, I started to growl in pain, quiet from suppression, as I continued to pin the beast to the floor as best as the strength of that form allowed me to.

Then, suddenly, the air around me started to cool, and dropped to a startlingly frigged temperature.

“Holland, move!”

Without questioning, I rolled off of the other Avatar, letting out a screech as I did because the shards lodged themselves farther into my skin, and then—somehow—Gdon was chilled by a blast of ice-cold air, causing a lattice structure of thick ice around the base of the beast. It must not have liked it because it wailed and whined horrendously and its free portions trashed about haphazardly to no avail as Indra continued to manipulate the temperature magically.

In the dream Idamdra didn’t tell me anything about elemental powers or how to manipulate them, so I guess that was something I would have to either figure out on my own or have someone else teach me. Or maybe realize it wasn’t that difficult and the whole thing would come naturally. Or I could also just ask Idamdra, their presence, to help me out.

But, I didn’t have control over heat in the same manner that Indra was showing. Although, The same thing we both had power over was electricity—lightning. Except, it wasn’t necessary at the moment: wind was.

Having escaped the onslaught of the Embryon Tuners, the other Gdon bounded towards Roland and I with great strides. Then, Idamdra headed a word of advice: ‘ _Speak to the air and it will obey._ ’ And it truly was as simple as that.

A blast of air knocked the tiger back, tumbling over itself, causing them to smash into Agni, knocking him over also. Bellowing a loud roar, Agni seemingly forgotten about its bout with Varuna and started bounding at me with great speed considering its size and bulkiness. Then, he slashed their claw-like blades with precise movements while coming at me. I ducked to evade the strikes, and with a quickstep, glided to Agni’s backside, and tried to get a punch to one of the faces in, but the Avatar caught my forearm mid-swing and chomped down into my flesh and broke the steel-hard armor hide there.

There was only enough time to grit my teeth before Agni grabbed my other arm with its mighty palm and swung me around forcefully, almost effortlessly, to face him head on. Wasting no time, the Avatar reared its heads backwards then thrust him forward, smashing into my helmeted head, with great force. Disassociated from the blow, I couldn’t think of anything besides the pain around my head, let alone have enough sense to fight back, so there was no resistance when Agni flung me back through the broken glass wall far enough where I smashed against the hallway wall on the other side.

Bits of concrete flaked off of the wall as I tried to situate myself, but it was already to late. Agni had moved in for the finishing blow and grabbed my face and slammed it back against the concrete with great force. Luckily, it was only done once, because it was enough to cause my head to throb and rattle in skull splitting pain. All I could focus on was the pain. But, somewhere amidst the mess, Idamdra couldn’t take it any longer and withdrew back into the aether from which their corporeal form seems to come from.

Indra bellowed a deep warding shout as a warning to Agni. The rest I couldn’t make out because the sound caused my head to throb even worse then it already did, so I just was lying their motionlessly, eyes closed, and palming at my head with hands to try and ease the pain with light pressure. The sounds of battle were nothing more than muffled noises and screeches of Avatars clawing at each other and weaponizing elemental powers, but every once in awhile something closer to me could be heard shifting about across the flooring, but nothing more, no war cries or clashing of bone-blades against each other. When I managed to open my eyes to take a look at what it was, all I saw were the soles of Indra’s feet standing idly in place guarding the section of floor I never moved from.

Eventually, Agni exerted a great wail, darted across the room, his footsteps powerful and heavy, and in retreat, left the Health and Wellness Center and into the Karma Society Tower. The sounds of broken pottery and the thumping of shrubbery hitting the ground could be heard from outside as they left.

Then, after all went silent, Roland expressed a simple “Holland, are you okay?”

There was a sore throbbing originating from in the back of my head where it hit the glass, and the pain was so great that I didn’t think I was going to be able to sit or stand without being overcome by it. In honesty, it felt like that one time in grammar school gym class where I accidentally ran into a wall at full running speed because I wasn’t paying attention, but worse. I was in so much pain that one time though; I had to lie down for the rest of the class.

“Well,” I began to say, closing my eyes again, “we’ll find out. If I die in a couple of hours then we’ll know I’m not okay.”

For all I knew I could have had internal bleeding, which we had no way of treating.

“But, for right now,” I continued, “I just need to lie down for a bit.”

“We should get back to the base,” Roland then said, “Holland’s hurt, and it’s getting late in the day. My men are probably tired, and we’ll need a bit of energy for rummaging when the sun goes down.”

Gale did not sound convinced.

“Your informant is waiting for us. We are already where they are stationed,” he had said.

“They can wait a little longer,” Roland replied, “It’s my job to look after my men… Surely you can understand.”

That was a plea specifically directed at Serph, a request made from one leader to another; Roland’s voice softening as he spoke towards the end.

Since it was new voice I hadn’t recognized, I assumed it was Serph that gave a smooth and stern “alright” in agreement. Even though it wasn’t long, it still sounded fluid like the swishing of water, and was completely void of typical gendered characteristics.

Afterwards, I heard the crumbling and general movement of fabric next to me. It was what I guessed to have been Roland squatting down next to me because he gave me a brief forewarning before he started handling and moving me in a way where I’d be slung over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, but I was not making it easy for him because I rather not have been carried that way.

“If carrying him is proving to be difficult, I can assist you,” Gale said to Roland’s apparent struggling, making both Roland and I’s cheeks flush a bright red.

“Give me a break, Holland,” Roland was whispering and huffing next to me, “or would you rather me carry you a different way?”

Piggyback was the only other sensible option, because I refuse to be carried like it was my wedding day, and if my head was capable of focusing on anything else but the pain, then I would’ve figured this was how Adil felt when I was giving him a ride earlier. But, if anything, this was more embarrassing because we, two grown men, were both in human form at the moment. I know there wasn’t anything inherently wrong with it, but it just felt silly.

At least I wasn’t much trouble to carry considering I couldn’t have weighed that much. I didn’t weigh a lot even when I was at my healthiest, so surely I couldn’t have been a problem for Roland. Gale had even made a side comment that if I was too heavy to carry that he would carry me, but Roland got a laugh explaining that I wasn’t too much weight over his shoulders—well, technically on his back. Gale did have a point that he didn’t directly say though. The Embryon were soldiers, physically fit and meant for the task, and Roland, I, and the rest of the underground residents were surviving off of scraps and not in the best physical shape. Although, if Roland transformed into Indra the only problem he would have would be to look for something to eat afterward.

Roland did meet the task and did carry me back all the way back across the, but not up the elevator into the base. By then some of the pain had subsided, so I felt comfortable enough to stand on my own, but as soon as we reached the residential level, I swore, I was going to take a much needed nap in the war room.


	5. Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Much needed time is taken away from the pressure of having to deal with the Karma Society and rescuing Sera from them. Both the Embryon and Lokapala take time off to recuperate and regenerate with some leisure activities. After his nap, Holland finds himself spectating Serph play a fixed shooter video game then engaging in a small game of soccer with the kids in Old Portland.

Idamdra didn’t visit me during my nap, or maybe they did and I just didn’t remember. I’ve gone years without having dreams so it was quite possible that I just didn’t remember what my mind decided to process while it slowed down. Or maybe I just didn’t fall deep enough into a sleep for the visit. The nap really wasn’t sleeping, but more of that weird state before falling into a deep sleep where you’re still kind of conscious but not conscious. Then, there were also times I was fully conscious and just had my eyes closed because I was still tired and it was better than nothing.

During my fake sleep I could hear Roland go at it on his keyboard, typing intermittently when the words and ideas came to him. For whatever reason, he didn’t like taking the laptop out of the war room, so whenever he had to work on it, he always did it in the war room. I just happened to be napping in the war room because I was too lazy to walk all the way back to my apartment, and I wasn’t expecting Roland to actually stay there too and write up some of his novel.

Neither of us were bothering each other, for the most part, so it didn’t matter that he was there. He wrote and I rested, and that was about it. There was a couple of times he did ask if I wanted the pillow or blanket that was stashed away in one of the cabinets specifically for reasons like this and late nights in the office, but I turned down the offers. Even after his typing slowed to a halt and his speech went low and quiet, realization hitting him that I hadn’t eaten after the scuffle in the Karma Tower, I said I wasn’t hungry and didn’t feel the need to eat, or consume, or devour, or whatever satiating the hunger was considered to Tuners. Roland expressed that he found that statement quite odd.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled out, eyes still closed, “it’s probably a personal problem. I don’t really eat much anyway, so my body is probably used to it. Or maybe it’s a perk of my specific Avatar. …That’d be cool.”

Roland’s beginning remark was a small “Maybe” under his breath, but ended with an outright, solid sentiment, saying that if I were ever to lose control because I haven’t eaten, he would make that hard decision of making sure I wasn’t going to be a threat to the rest of the Lokapala and regular citizens. If it ever got that bad, I figured I’d be too gone to care about the conscious worry of life or death anyway, so he might as well just end it if it came to it. Of course, neither of us wanted it to turn out that way.

I didn’t really want to think about it too much, so I figured a change of scenery would help me out. After bidding Roland a brief farewell, I moseyed my way out of the room to find out what everyone else was up to.

・・・・・・・・

Outside, Cielo, Gale, Argilla, and one of Fred’s younger friends were huddled around Serph, who had seemed to be fiddling with something handheld, a gaming console presumably, on the opposite side of the bridge connecting the two streets. All of them looked intently at Serph as he focused on what he was doing. For someone who’s expression has always been relaxed and neutral—except for maybe that one time when Roland professed to Serph he became a tuner to help them out—his face was tense, brow furrowed, and his mouth was starting to pout.

“What are you guys playing?” I asked, sneaking in around Cielo.

“This cool game I found outside the other night,” Fred’s friend said with much excitement and vigor.

If I was more authoritative toward the children, I would have told her that she shouldn’t have been wandering outside on the surface, that such was something that should be left for the adults to do, but I was never good at disciplining children. So, instead, I gave a soft comment that perhaps next time she should ask her mother or father to bring back anything interesting for her.

But, on the screen of the handheld console was a fixed shooter where the player shot various monsters and demons that glided down from the top to the bottom of the screen. Serph tried his best to shoot every monster, which he did with the ease of having tried the stage multiple times, until he reached the end of the stage and was shot down by the boss halfway through.

“Wanna try, Holland?” Fred’s friend asked.

“Oh, no thanks, I don’t really like shooters. Someone else can try if they want.”

“You play games like this too, Holland?” Cielo said.

“Not really. Although, I was into some fixed shooters when I was really young because I had a Classics collection. I was more into playing JRPGs and basically nothing else though.”

Cielo, Gale, and Argilla looked at me blank faced.

“Roland had said we are from a simulation. Fred had said we are from a game,” Gale said, “Are simulations like games? Are we from a JRPG?”

Idamdra found that rather funny. I could tell it was Idamdra because there was this sense of tittering that wasn’t mine, but I was still feeling it, and Idamdra was my only explanation, unless there was something even greater going on. But, there was a sense of humor of someone saying they’re from a video game because it seemed just so outlandish in a setting that wasn’t filled with weird phenomena like a Black Sun that turns people to stone and a society that commutated with god through a child with the body of an eighteen year old. If anything, those of us in Portland should’ve been wondering if we were the ones in a video game.

In hindsight though, it seemed like a reasonable question for someone who had no experience outside of their own fabricated one, so it was in the best interest to simply clarify a few differences for them.

“Uh, no. You guys are more from a VR, or ‘Virtual Reality.’ ‘JRPG’ means ‘Japanese Role-Playing Game.’ Aside from being made in Japan, there are other things that define it as its own genre of video game, like turn based mechanics. I like the turn base style because it gives me time to think, strategize, and plan out how I want to do battle without the stress of real-time combat.”

Not that I was about to say anything more, but I was stopped by a ball, coming from the direction of Fred and a small group of his friends, rolling towards our group. Wanting their ball back, Fred called out to us and added a bit more.

“Hey, Serph! You guys wanna play with us? We could use more people.”

There were four of them playing soccer, if it could even be called that. It wasn’t truly a game since they didn’t even bother to split up into two groups of two, and instead were just passing the ball between each other like a game of catch. Serph did look interested in what Fred and his friends were playing, so he gave a shallow nod of his head to signal that they will accept the invitation and join in on their game. I wasn’t going to initially play because I was kind of worn out from the day, but Cielo gave me a nudge and a lighthearted look, saying: “c’mon, man. You’re not gonna play?”

“So, this is a soccer ball,” Fred explained, holding the black and white checkered ball, once we all were included in the gaggle, “and you have to kick it with your feet, like this”—Fred demonstrated how to use a soccer ball between his feet then passing it off to one of his friends—“you’re not allowed to use your hands when playing, got that?”

“Why are we not allowed to use our hands,” Gale asked, “that seems inefficient.”

“I don’t know,” Fred answered, “that’s just how the rules are.”

Then, Fred finished explaining that the idea of the game was to score points by kicking the ball into a goal. The gaggle did have one kid sized net that Johnny and Kathy scavenged from the surface one night and stored in the Mad Mart for safe keeping. For the other goal, the kids managed to find two large, plastic bins to designate as goal post, and placed them at the opposing end of the street from the kiddie net.

“Alright, time to pick teams!” Fred said after everything was all set up. He designated himself and one of his friend’s as team captains or “leaders” to begin picking who would be assigned to whom. Naturally, Fred and his friend picked their friends to start off with, but once they were chosen he suggested that Serph, Gale, Cielo, Argilla, and I would pick the next person once we were called to a team because us adults knew each other better. No one was against the idea.

“I pick Gale,” Fred started off.

“Holland,” Fred’s friend followed.

“Serph,” Gale chose.

“Uh, Cielo,” I said.

“That means Argilla is on my team.”

Which also meant the teams were uneven: there was a team of six and one of five, but that seemed typical of children’s street soccer, or at least, no one minded it, considering four of the players have never played the game before. Even still, the Embryon came into the game full force—probably due to an innate sense of duty or something—and were proving to be pretty capable with a soccer ball. Argilla was having a bit of trouble running around and maneuvering the ball while wearing the long skirt, so I offered for her to adjust it so she could move more easily, but neither of us had any idea what to do with the skirt to make her nimbler. I did remember seeing a tutorial once on the internet, before the Black Sun happened, about how to make a skirt into a pair of shorts, but I couldn’t really remember how to do it. Noticing we were both struggling with the topic, Argilla just said she was wearing shorts underneath the skirt and decided to just remove the skirt portion of her uniform.

It was obviously an abnormality, and I don’t think any of her comrades have ever seen her without the skirt, because they were slinging around comments about it lightheartedly. She even remarked that it felt funny without the skirt because she was so used to wearing it.

“You won’t be laughing when we win, Cielo,” Argilla said.

“Oh yah? C’mon, Holland. Let’s show them!”—the game resumed.

Cielo made a few maneuvers around the opposing team and kicked the ball wildly with power, trying to shoot it between the goal posts. It was shot at such a fast speed that no one dared go near it in fear of getting hit, and we weren’t playing with goalies, so it shot at an angle straight through were the goal was and continued speeding towards the Mad Mart because it was the side with the imaginary goal that was just marked with bins on where the goal should be. Whizzing past, the ball bounced off of the building wall past the shop at an angle and almost hit Roland on the rebound, but luckily for him, by then the ball had slowed down to a manageable speed.

He had come out for who knows what reason, but given the time my best guess was rounding up a few folks for surface scavenging. It also explained why he’d be around the Mad Mart since Johnny and Kathy of all people would know best about what’s needed and how to get it. But, Roland rarely went to the surface though. He was more just the organizer than anything else.

Because of the airy thump of the ball against concrete, Roland drew his attention towards the ball, fiddling with it with his feet to stop, gain control, and pass the ball back towards the kids. One of Fred’s younger friends picked up the ball and gave Roland a hearty smile and wave of thanks in return. She then gave the ball to Fred because he was their ringleader and he’d be the one to say how we’d start playing again. But, Fred didn’t look pleased.

There was some internal grudge going on between Fred and Roland, which was very much justified on Fred’s behalf. Don’t get me wrong, Roland wasn’t the worst guardian and provided Fred with all his basic needs, but he also had come to slowly neglect Fred after his father’s death. Unless the situation had gotten dire, Roland was pretty neglectful in general: forgetting, avoiding, or just taking a longer time than average to get around to his responsibilities. So, Roland didn’t really take time to be comforting and fatherly, and even though Fred was a too-cool-to-be-seen-with-his-parents kind of teenager, he missed that.

Fred would tell me that, when he was little, Roland and his father would often play ball or catch or even extensive games of tag or hide and seek or something with him, even after they moved underground. He had confessed to me once that the time spent playing those games were some of the happiest memories he had. He also said that I couldn’t tell anyone else that either; I gave him my promise, but I guess this is considered as me breaking it.

“Hey, Roland,” I said, trying to call his attention, “are you doing anything? We could use another person to even the teams.”

He looked surprised, of all things. Fred, on the other hand, just looked overly flustered, and I could see that both of them were reeling through scenarios while staring at each other. In between blinks, Roland was trying to be suave about catching glanced towards Argilla’s direction, admiring her, how little he could, of her without her skirt on.

“I guess I’m not doing anything,” Roland eventually replied and glanced around between all of us, “So, whose team am I on?”

“Mine,” I replied, and proceeded to brief Roland on who was to which group.

Since it was Cielo who caused the ball to go out of bounds—even though we played with no clearly marked boarders—the little girl who was on Fred’s team went to go retrieve the ball and promptly passed it to Fred once she got close enough. Roland found himself on the defensive as Fred fiddled with the ball between his feet, but he had gotten a little too carried away and slipped over the ball while trying to pass, with the back side of his foot, leaving and opening for Roland to pull back the ball into his possession by using the sole of his foot. With his toes, he popped the ball slightly up into the air and volleyed it on his foot once, then tapped it in such a way where it passed by Fred’s feet and to his backside.

I never really pegged Roland to have been the athletic type, but maybe all those times playing soccer with Greg and Fred really did pay off. Either that or he was secretly the star player from back in his elementary and high school days. Even Fred’s friend, who was our team leader, thought it was an unexpected sight, having let out a whistle followed by a very vocal “Dang! The old man’s got moves!”

But, as impressive as it was, it wasn’t enough for Roland to keep possession of the ball. Gale had come in, forcefully, and swept the ball clean out from underneath Roland’s feet, carried it all the way across the playing field, and took a shot at our goal. Both Cielo and myself had tried deflecting the ball, but it was to no avail. The ball whizzed past into the kiddie-sized goal at the same speed Cielo took his shot with not long before. It was forceful enough to where it may or may not have even pushed the goal backwards. It all happened so fast, and I wasn’t exactly looking behind me.

The rest of the game did not go on much longer after that, for the kids were getting tired of playing, having played longer than us, but it was also rather late, and two of Fred’s friends were rather young. But, before they left, the little girl seemed very interested in all of our Atma markings, particularly asking Roland about his for I remembered that I still did not realize where mine was placed. She said she had overheard some of the adults talking about how they were becoming more and more open to the idea of becoming Tuners themselves, since Roland and I had both taken the leap of faith and had come out relatively fine.

Roland, I, and even Argilla and Cielo reassured her that what she was worrying about was something for the adults to think over, and that she should go home and sleep. Before bounding off to bed, she said something I didn’t fully catch about the terminal, but the gist of it was that she was happy that it was something Roland and the Embryon found useful.

After all of the kids dispersed—besides Fred, since he was with Roland and was the oldest out of them all anyway—I thought it a better time and place to ask the Embryon about the vital necessity of being a Tuner.

“So, I’ve never used a terminal before, and it seems rather important. Can you guys teach me how to use it?”

・・・・・・・・

I don’t know where the kids found it, and I don’t know how they dragged it back to the Center either, but the Karma Terminal that they found its new permanent home next to the Mad Mart. It was an odd looking, computer-like machine that had a screen attached to it on a pivot point to allow user interface. A red icon resembling a bloomed flower rested against a black background on the screen as a screensaver or something, and there was a mat where the user would stand attached to the machine on the grown with the very same icon, glowing a vibrant red to mimic the screen.

All any Tuner had to do to interact with it was touch the screen, but there was a hand scanner to log on to the Mantra System. Even though Roland had found a way to bypass any Karma specific locks, or however the system ran, I wasn’t too convinced that it was going to allow me access. But, it did allow Roland access, who also wasn’t Karma affiliated, and there wasn’t any harm in trying. The worst that could happen is that I would get denied, which wasn’t any different from now.

After scanning my hand, the screen displayed brief basics about identifying my Avatar. The registration followed as:

Atma: Spectral Line

Avatar: Idamdra

At the bottom of the screen, aligned with the text, was an image of a marking that all Tuners had. It resembled Roland’s mark in the sense that it was an organically shaped circle with a sharp-toothed mouth placed as if the image was being looked at by a profile view. But, the shape of the mouth looked nothing like the marking branded on Roland’s hand, and the lines jutting out the back end were straight, instead of being lightning-like, while some negative space made it look like lines were invading the main circular section of the brand. Trying to describe the odd shape of the marking made me realize it was the first time I was seeing my mark, my brand. It was both creepy and extraordinary that this machine new all of that information when I didn’t even know it myself.

After logging on, the screen transitioned into a grey background with a hexagonally designed grid system where each node signified a different mantra to be mastered. Mantra already mastered by the Avatar would be outlined in a glowing, airy yellow amidst a warm gray center, and touching each node would enlarge the hexagon so that more detailed information regarding the mantra could be displayed.

Idamdra had a few mantras innately mastered: “Devourer,” “Spirit,” “Dragon,” “Protection,” and “Bolt Wizard.” The titles of the mantra were the only thing evident on an unopened node. Although, some nodes were dark and there was no access to them at all. But, according to the system, the skills Idamdra where currently capable of were wind and electric based elemental control, some healing properties, and some assistive skills, for whatever they meant and were worth. It certainly explained why Idamdra was able to blast away that tiger-like demon with a gust of air.

“So, how do I go about mastering a new mantra?” I said slowly with a bit of grogginess to the Embryon, and Roland, who were in the relative vicinity exactly for reasons like this.

“Select the mantra you want to master,” Gale said, “then there will be a prompt at the bottom of the screen to download it.”

“I get that, but like… how do you download something on to a person?”

Gale just looked at me blank faced and unsure of what I meant by the question. I guess they never really had to think about it before because they were from a digital world, and they just accepted things that they know to work without wondering how or why. But, to me, and probably Roland, it seemed strange, impossible to our knowledge, to apply something digital to something organic because that’s just how we knew things in this world. I was probably just missing something somewhere though.

“I guess we can just try it and find out.”

It worked for Roland, I think, so something would have to happen, except I couldn’t bring myself to click on any of the mantra to select for download. The options just bounced around my empty head like an icon on a screensaver.

“Uh… which one should I pick?”

Exploring the electric skills seemed the most reasonable, but both Indra and Dyaus also had mastery over electricity, so I figured it would just be overkill on that part if I decided to traverse an electric path. Like Idamdra, Vayu was also a sufficient user of wind and air abilities. Then, after mulling it over in my head some more, I selected the Bhikkhuni mantra, a physical based mantra that connected to other supportive skillsets, and clicked on the “download” option. I figured I would be better as someone off to the sidelines helping everyone else than doing any heavy lifting myself.

The platform on the ground connected to the machine began to glow a bit more brightly, creating a red under-glow on my figure, and the light emitted a steady amount of heat, warming both the inside and outside of my person. It almost felt like tuning actually, that the heat on the outside was triggering some reaction on the inside. The heat just swirled around my body for a few minutes before the light on the pad’s light bellow my feet began to subside and return to its normal, rich red glow.

Holding back a yawn I said, “I guess that’s that,” to the machine before asking Gale how to log off of the system, to which he replied that the system would log me off after commanding the machine into a type of rest mode by clicking the button on the lower portion of the screen. Doing so set the screen back to the appearance of the screensaver with the red, bloomed flower icon. Then, when I was done I turned back to the group and was instantly not able to hold off the second yawn. It was a little embarrassing considering the rest of them, the Embryon mostly, who seemed to have endless energy, except Roland. I just knew he was constantly tired, but had trouble falling asleep at reasonable hours.

“Perhaps we should call it in for the night,” Roland said in reply to my apparent tiredness.

“Agreed,” Fred chipped in with his input, beginning to yawn himself.

After some pondering and uncertainty of exactly where the Embryon would sleep, it was simply decided upon that Serph and Gale would go to Roland’s place since Fred did a lot of coaxing and bargaining to let them stay with him and Roland. That meant that Cielo and Argilla would just spend the night in my little apartment with me, which I guess worked out since I thought Cielo confided in me the most out of all of the members of the Lokapala, however little it may have been.

Roland and I lived in opposite directions, after a certain point, so it was just the three of us—Cielo, Argilla, and I—on our trek back to my apartment for most of the way. I wasn’t exactly the talkative type, even around people I knew, so most of the journey went in awkward silence—or perhaps it was not awkward silence. Cielo and Argilla seemed like they were used to traveling in quiet company, considering I don’t think I’ve ever heard their leader speak, but I also assumed it was because of the nature of their origins; both were in general ease with their motions and their faces didn’t contort or bend in discomfort.

At one point during the journey Cielo did start humming some kind of tune to himself before Argilla chimed in with a query, wondering about the Lokapala’s relationship with Roland.

“How can you follow a leader like him?” she said in a huff, “Leaders are supposed to be responsible, not brush off their duties like a coward. They’re supposed to help their people too, not only care about themselves.”

I was about to say something that was probably going to get me eaten, I say as someone who now also needs to consume others, even though I haven’t had that problem yet.

“I get why you think that, but you haven’t known Roland that long. Don’t get me wrong, ever since Greg died he hasn’t found the best coping mechanisms to deal with it all, and he should give Fred more attention, but… I don’t know… he’s dealing with a lot, and he’s handling it the best he can. And if you’ve been around for more than a day, you’d realize he is being responsible and does care about us… a lot.”

I started rubbing at the back of my neck with my left hand.

“Look, Roland does what he does with the Lokapala because he’s keeping us in his best interest. He takes the defensive because, in the end, that’s what’s best for us. The best we can do is to hold our own against what the Society has. His first priority is to keep us alive… and I don’t think he could handle loosing anyone else…”

“He killed one of your own,” Argilla interjected.

“You’re right, and that’s blood he has on his hands, unjustifiably. But, the intention was for our best interest. I’m not saying what he did was right, because it wasn’t, but it was done to keep us safe. That was his rationale.”

Argilla’s mouth was still in a pout. I sighed.

“There’s a lot that could be said about Roland, good and bad. Hell, sometimes I’ve forgotten what I like about him too. I’ve just… been with him for so long that it’s just something that I understand. Maybe the rest of the guys feel that way too, especially the guys who have been around longer than I have. Does that satisfy you?”

Argilla’s expression softened. I don’t know what I did, but maybe I finally go through to her a little bit.

“Do you love him, Holland?” Argilla asked after a great deal of silent contemplation and reflection. I wanted to stammer out a flustered “Excuse me?!” in response, but I ended up taking the time to breath and collect my thoughts a little bit more logically. In the end, my response did come out more skeptical that I intended.

“Why, if I may ask?”

“I don’t know,” Argilla said, “but back in the Junkyard when Heat told me to eat Jinana… I felt that Heat wasn’t respecting Jinana, and I slapped him. We were comrades. How could he say such a thing, I thought.”

I didn’t know whom either of those people where, but I was going to pretend I did for Argilla and Cielo’s sake. My assumption was Jinana and Heat were just more of the Embryon Tribe. Argilla continued.

“Sera said that what I was feeling was ‘sadness,’ and ‘anger’ because of ‘grief.’ She said when you care about someone you’ll feel that way when you loose them or someone says bad things about them. You sounded like you were angry before. I thought maybe you feel the same way for Roland as I feel for Jinana.”

“Ah, uh… In that case, yes, I guess you could say I love him, sure,” I managed to say, but I felt a little self-conscious, almost like I was confessing something, because it could be said that I was, when saying it, so I ended up explaining further: “But, well… you know, the Greeks have three words for love: philos, eros, and agape. When someone loves another person because they know them really well and bond with them, and you trust each other, that’s what philos is. That’s the type of love I’m talking about when I say ‘I love Roland.’ … Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” Argilla replied, “It’s like how I feel towards Serph and the others. Right, Cielo?”

Cielo, who was not paying us any attention and had his hand held behind his head, spreading his elbows out as far as he could, and was looking away, minding his own business. But, once he heard his name being called, he turned his head towards Argilla, almost hitting her against the shoulder with his elbow, exclaiming a loud “Huh?” Argilla’s face turned sour, like she was about to scold Cielo, but I spared him of any oncoming wrath because I interrupted with announcing we had finally reached my apartment.

The inside was small and quaint, like any other apartment of the underground, but also quite dingy and dark, also like any other apartment of the underground. It was solely a singular room with no partitions. There was only one ceiling light in the center of the room, which was the bulk of the lighting, and as I flipped the light switch on to welcome us home, the rest of the room became apparent and homey.

There was a dinky couch paired with a worn coffee table towards the entrance way, and a small kitchen-like area, complete with a stove and sink, was shoved off in the far back corner of the apartment adjacent to a twin-sized bed with a nightstand that had a lamp on top of it. But, most noticeably there was a small collection of stuffed animals scattered around the apartment, mostly on top of the cushioned furniture. Cielo and Argilla took a fondness towards the plush toys, picking them up in examination, and made brief remarks about their cuteness and how they were unlike anything they had in the Junkyard.

“Yeah, they bring me a little bit of happiness, so I keep them around,” I remarked; then Argilla placed the fuzzy, stuffed owl she was holding back onto the couch.

I wasn’t willing to staying up much longer than that, and offered Argilla the bed and Cielo the couch. Chivalry was the code of conduct for giving Argilla the bed—plus Cielo was shorter in stature and would fit on the couch more comfortably—but even still Cielo protested a bit about wanting the bed. In the end Argilla won the argument and went to sleep on the bed. I, on the other hand, pulled out a sleeping mat that was rolled up in the closet and collected as many excess blankets as I could find to sleep with and also to cushion the ground with too. It wasn’t going to be the best sleep I ever had, but it would have to do.


End file.
